The Orchard And The Heath

I CHANCED upon an early walk to spy A troop of children through an orchard gate: The boughs hung low, the grass was high; They had but to lift hands or wait For fruits to fill them; fruits were all their sky.

They shouted, running on from tree to tree, And played the game the wind plays, on and round. ’Twas visible invisible glee Pursuing; and a fountain’s sound Of laughter spouted, pattering fresh on me.

I could have watched them till the daylight fled, Their pretty bower made such a light of day. A small one tumbling sang, ‘Oh! head!’ The rest to comfort her straightway Seized on a branch and thumped down apples red.

The tiny creature flashing through green grass, And laughing with her feet and eyes among Fresh apples, while a little lass Over as o’er breeze-ripples hung: That sight I saw, and passed as aliens pass.

My footpath left the pleasant farms and lanes, Soft cottage-smoke, straight cocks a-crow, gay flowers; Beyond the wheel-ruts of the wains, Across a heath I walked for hours, And met its rival tenants, rays and rains.

Still in my view mile-distant firs appeared, When, under a patched channel-bank enriched With foxglove whose late bells drooped seared, Behold, a family had pitched Their camp, and labouring the low tent upreared.

Here, too, were many children, quick to scan A new thing coming; swarthy cheeks, white teeth: In many-coloured rags they ran, Like iron runlets of the heath. Dispersed lay broth-pot, sticks, and drinking-can.

Three girls, with shoulders like a boat at sea Tipped sideways by the wave (their clothing slid From either ridge unequally), Lean, swift and voluble, bestrid A starting-point, unfrocked to the bent knee.

They raced; their brothers yelled them on, and broke In act to follow, but as one they snuffed Wood-fumes, and by the fire that spoke Of provender, its pale flame puffed, And rolled athwart dwarf furzes grey-blue smoke.

Soon on the dark edge of a ruddier gleam, The mother-pot perusing, all, stretched flat, Paused for its bubbling-up supreme: A dog upright in circle sat, And oft his nose went with the flying steam.

I turned and looked on heaven awhile, where now The moor-faced sunset broadened with red light; Threw high aloft a golden bough, And seemed the desert of the night Far down with mellow orchards to endow.