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Maxwell Bodenheim
Happier than green-kirtled apple-trees
Waving their soft-rimmed fans of light
And taking the morning mist, in quick breaths,
You sit in the woven meditation and surprise
Of a morning uncovering its wind-wreathed head.
And yet within the light stillness of your soul
Dream-heavy guards sleep uneasily
Over the body of your last slain sorrow.
His words were magic and his heart was true,
And everywhere he wandered he was blessed.
Out of all ancient men my childhood knew
I choose him and I mark him for the best.
Of all authoritative liars, too,
I crown him loveliest.
How fondly I remember the delight
That always glorified him in the spring;
The joyous courage and the benedight
Profusion of his faith in everything!
He was a good old man, and it was right
That he should have his fling.
And often, underneath the apple-trees,
When we surprised him in the summer time,
With what superb magnificence and ease
He sinned enough to make the day sublime!
Not in that wasted garden
Where bodies are drawn into grass
That feeds no flocks, and into evergreens
That bear no fruit—
There where along the shaded walks
Vain sighs are heard,
And vainer dreams are dreamed
Of close communion with departed souls—
But here under the apple tree
I loved and watched and pruned
With gnarled hands
In the long, long years;
Here under the roots of this northern-spy
To move in the chemic change and circle of life,
Into the soil and into the flesh of the tree,
And into the living epitaphs
My house is damp as damp can be,
It stands on London clay.
And if I move unthinkingly
It shakes in a most alarming way.
Mayhap it will all come down on me
One day.
But through the window I can see
The most enchanting apple-tree.
In spring-time, there are daffodils
And primroses on little hills,
And high within my apple-tree
A blackbird comes and sings to me;
On the black branch he sits and sings
Of birds and nests and eggs and things.
I can't remember, as I hear,
That old grey London lies so near.