I
PEAR-TREES, once white with April’s garlanding,
And apple-trees, whose blossoms pink and white
When May was young were pictures of delight,
Have not belied the promise of the spring;
And now hath come the time for garnering
The gold and crimson harvest. Ah, how slight
The labour was that Nature doth requite
With such a fair and ample plenishing!
And yet we gather with a kind of shame:
To rob the trees of ornament so fair
Is so like stripping from a comely dame
The jewelled trinkets she delights to wear.
Yet we may gather and be free from blame;
For if we tarry, Nature will not spare.
II
Apples less large and beautiful are these
Than the immortal fruit of golden hue,
Which in the old Greek story Gaea grew,-
Those which from Atlas’ daughters Heracles
Won after travel over fearsome seas
And lands more strange than other heroes knew,
And that adventurous battle when he slew
The dragon-guard of the Hesperides.
But these are better, being all our own,
The produce of the garden we love best,
Which from the bud and blossom we have known.
No apples that heroic strength might wrest
From an enchanted garden in the west
Can match with fruit that we ourselves have grown.
(Robert Henry Forster)
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