Ii

The children of what fathers sleep Beneath these melancholy pines? The slow slugs crawl among their graves where creep The doddered poison-vines. The orchard, near the meadow deep, Lifts up decrepit arms, Gray-lichened in a withering heap. No sap swells up to make it leap As once in calms and storms; No blossom lulls its age asleep; Each breeze brings sad alarms. Big, bell-round pears and apples, russet-red, No maiden gathers now; The worm-bored trunks weep gum, like tears, instead, From each decaying bough.