V

Her pearls are blossoms-of-the-vale, Her only diamonds are the dews; Such jewels never can grow stale, Nor any value lose.

Among the millet beards she stands: The languid wind lolls everywhere: There are wild roses in her hands, One wild rose in her hair.

To-morrow, where the shade is warm, Among the unmown wheat she’ll stop, And from one daisy-loaded arm One ox-eyed daisy drop.

She’ll meet his brown eyes, true and brave, With blue eyes, false yet dreamy sweet: He is her lover and her slave, Who mows among the wheat.

* * * * *

When buds broke on the apple trees She wore an apple-blossom dress, And laughed with him across the leas, And love was all a guess.

When goose-plums ripened in the rain, Plum-colored was her gown of red; He kissed her in the creek-road lane-- She was his life, he said.

When apples thumped the droughty land, A russet color was her gown: Another came, and--won her hand?-- Nay! carried off to town....

When grapes hung purple in the hot, None missed her and her simple dress, Save one, whom, haply, she forgot, Who loved her none the less.

When snow made white each harvest sheaf, He sought her out amid her show; Her rubies, redder than the leaf That autumn forests sow.

Not one regret her shame reveals; She smiles at him, then puts him by; He pleads; and she? she merely steels Her heart and--lives her lie.