Ii

The children of what fathers sleep Beneath those melancholy pines? The slow slugs slime their headstones there where creep The doddered poison-vines. The orchard, near the meadow deep, Lifts up decrepit arms, Black-lichened in a withering heap. No sap swells up to make it leap And shout against spring’s storms; No blossom lulls its age asleep; The winds bring sad alarms. Big, bell-round pears and pippins, russet-red, No maiden gathers now; The worm-bored trunks weep tears of gum instead, Oozing from each old bough.