The Second Book of Modern Verse Part 35

After Apple-Picking. [Robert Frost]

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree Toward heaven still, And there's a barrel that I didn't fill Beside it, and there may be two or three Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.

But I am done with apple-picking now.

Essence of winter sleep is on the night, The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.

I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight I got from looking through a pane of gla.s.s I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough And held against the world of h.o.a.ry gra.s.s.

It melted, and I let it fall and break.

But I was well Upon my way to sleep before it fell, And I could tell What form my dreaming was about to take.

Magnified apples appear and disappear, Stem end and blossom end, And every fleck of russet showing clear.

My instep arch not only keeps the ache, It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.

I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.

And I keep hearing from the cellar bin The rumbling sound Of load on load of apples coming in.

For I have had too much Of apple-picking: I am overtired Of the great harvest I myself desired.

There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch, Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.

For all That struck the earth, No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble, Went surely to the cider-apple heap As of no worth.

One can see what will trouble This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.

Were he not gone, The woodchuck could say whether it's like his Long sleep, as I describe its coming on, Or just some human sleep.

Autumn. [Jean Starr Untermeyer]

(For my Mother)

How memory cuts away the years, And how clean the picture comes Of autumn days, brisk and busy; Charged with keen suns.h.i.+ne.

And you, stirred with activity; The spirit of these energetic days.

There was our back-yard, So plain and stripped of green, With even the weeds carefully pulled away From the crooked, red bricks that made the walk, And the earth on either side so black.

Autumn and dead leaves burning in the sharp air; And winter comforts coming in like a pageant.

I shall not forget them: Great jars laden with the raw green of pickles, Standing in a solemn row across the back of the porch, Exhaling the pungent dill; And in the very center of the yard, You, tending the great catsup kettle of gleaming copper Where fat, red tomatoes bobbed up and down Like jolly monks in a drunken dance.

And there were bland banks of cabbages that came by the wagon-load, Soon to be cut into delicate ribbons Only to be crushed by the heavy, wooden stompers.

Such feathery whiteness -- to come to kraut!

And after, there were grapes that hid their brightness under a grey dust, Then gushed thrilling, purple blood over the fire; And enamelled crab-apples that tricked with their fragrance But were bitter to taste.

And there were spicy plums and ill-shaped quinces, And long string beans floating in pans of clear water Like slim, green fishes.

And there was fish itself, Salted, silver herring from the city . . .

And you moved among these mysteries, Absorbed and smiling and sure; Stirring, tasting, measuring, With the precision of a ritual.

I like to think of you in your years of power -- You, now so shaken and so powerless -- High priestess of your home.

Autumn Movement. [Carl Sandburg]

I cried over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts.

The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper sunburned woman, the mother of the year, the taker of seeds.

The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes, new beautiful things come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind, and the old things go, not one lasts.

G.o.d's World. [Edna St. Vincent Millay]

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!

Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!

Thy mists that roll and rise!

Thy woods this autumn day, that ache and sag And all but cry with colour! That gaunt crag To crus.h.!.+ To lift the lean of that black bluff!

World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!

Long have I known a glory in it all, But never knew I this; Here such a pa.s.sion is As stretcheth me apart, -- Lord, I do fear Thou'st made the world too beautiful this year; My soul is all but out of me, -- let fall No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.

Overtones. [William Alexander Percy]

I heard a bird at break of day Sing from the autumn trees A song so mystical and calm, So full of certainties, No man, I think, could listen long Except upon his knees.

Yet this was but a simple bird, Alone, among dead trees.

When the Year grows Old. [Edna St. Vincent Millay]

I cannot but remember When the year grows old -- October -- November -- How she disliked the cold!

She used to watch the swallows Go down across the sky, And turn from the window With a little sharp sigh.

And often when the brown leaves Were brittle on the ground, And the wind in the chimney Made a melancholy sound,

She had a look about her That I wish I could forget -- The look of a scared thing Sitting in a net!