A sky that has never known sun, moon, or stars, A sky that is like a dead, kind face Would have the color of your eyes, O servant-girl singing of pear-trees in the sun And scraping the yellow fruit you once picked When your lavender-white eyes were alive. On the porch above you sit two women With faces the color of dry brown earth; They knit grey rosettes and nibble cakes. And on the porch above them are three children Gravely kissing each other’s foreheads, And an ample nurse with a huge red fan.... The death of the afternoon to them Is but the lengthening of blue-black shadows on brick walls.

Edward Shanks

The Golden Moment

Along the branches of the laden tree The ripe fruit smiling hang. The afternoon Is emptied of all things done and things to be. Low in the sky the inconspicuous moon Stares enviously upon the mellow earth, That mocks her barren girth. Ripe blackberries and long green trailing grass Are motionless beneath the heavy light : The happy birds and creeping things that pass Go fitfully and stir as if in fright, That they have broken on some mystery In bramble or in tree. This is no hour for beings that are maiden ; The spring is virgin, lightly afraid and cold, But now the whole round earth is ripe and laden And stirs beneath her coverlet of gold

Arthur Stringer

I Sat in the Sunlight

I sat in the sunlight thinking of life; I sat there, dreaming of Death. And a moth alit on the sun-dial's face, And the birds sang sleepily, And the leaves stirred, And the sun lay warm on the hills, And the afternoon grew old. So, some day I knew the birds would sing, And the leaves would stir, And the afternoon grow old-- And I would not be there. And the warmth went out of the day, And a wind blew out of the West where I sat, And the birds were still!

Amy Lowell

September. 1918

This afternoon was the colour of water falling through sunlight ; The trees glittered with the tumbling of leaves ; The sidewalks shone like alleys of dropped maple leaves. And the houses ran along them laughing out of square, open windows. Under a tree in the park. Two little boys, lying flat on their faces. Were carefully gathering red berries To put in a pasteboard box. Some day there will be no war. Then I shall take out this afternoon And turn it in my fingers. And remark the sweet taste of it upon my palate. And note the crisp variety of its flights of leaves. To-day I can only gather it And put it into my lunch-box. For I have time for nothing

Alice Corbin Henderson

Afternoon

Earth tips to the west And the hills lean backward — Cedar-trees Hugging the hillsides. Smoke drifts in the valley — The pinto sun Nickers over the gate Of the home corral.

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