Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE ORCHARD FEAST, by GORDON BOTTOMLEY Poet's Biography First Line: Nay, leave the ladders hidden up the boughs Last Line: And lift our loads between us and go home. Subject(s): Country Life; Food & Eating | ||||||||
NAY, leave the ladders hidden up the boughs And in the cool grass rest a little while, Deep in green shadows that wash far over us Like slow, slow water; and no longer pile Apples down each still aisle: And maidens mid the trees, shake from your hair Thin moths the leaves drop there; slim maidens, loose Your upcaught skirts and come, our noon-meal share. Girls, when your fingers drained the shrinking curd Had they just handled pomace heavy-fumed, Or crushed dark-litten honey-comb, or stirred Lavender wort? Pulped herbs might well have spumed Our cider green-illumed: The mellowness of warm brown soil has steeped This dusky wheaten bread, this melon gourd Of gold, the air that cools shed linen heaped. When in the chilly moonlight of the morn The last man loitered here down the pale lanes, He hid a slender viol he had borne; So let him now entwine among its strains A song of golden wains; But do not dance to-day -- the year grows old, And if we dance we shall feel how forlorn Our fruit-place is, whose revels are over and told. Crowned with a valiant vaunt of wealth to come, Our Spring-tide orchard gleamed down gloomy glades And like a moving bosom the heaped bloom Was shot by tender tremors with rose-grey shades: There lyric-footed maids Stepped snow-faced under that translucent cloud Whence tired blooms, shaken by the bees' new hum, Dropped petal-drifts, white birds in woods dark-bowed. It is so sweet, it is so very sweet In the bent silent seeding grass to lie, 'Neath the dense leaves that clot with Summer's heat, Watching the green fruit yellow far on high; Where one grasshopper nigh Shakes the late clover; where the hushed birds stray; As poised upon a pause drowsed Summer's feet Linger and falter ere she trails away. Then in the moth-light pass we arm and waist Unto our dusky chamber rushen-strown, Our glimmering beds, with never any haste: From the low open windows we lean down And watch the fruit-garth drown In the warm restful night, and slowly hark The winging of a doubtful owl bat-mazed, While a late blackbird whistles in the dark. Are all your songs, O languid choristers, So heavy with the burden of the past? Each monotone of slumber-dropping verse Repeats "Of all our Summers lost so fast Perchance this is the last: We will not yet forget the green days gone: How can we hide life's undertone of fears With all the kindness of the year undone?" The waning life, the year's decay are ours, And thankfully we clasp delights grown old; But Summer's ebbing wave leaves full fruit-stores, Life burns us up one great gift to unfold; That gift of love we hold. So chant no unavailing litanies; The yellow leaves are falling like the hours, Dead hours that turn to earth about our knees. There is a little time for singing yet Ere the last garnering for eventide; But your drowsed voices falter with regret, You shiver as you whisper side by side And silently abide The nightfall's labour in the scarce-seen fruit, Too numb to care, too weary to forget, By voiceless feelings troubled and made mute. Take hands and let us go beyond the wood; For the spent seasons now no longer grieve; Loveliness is still waiting while you brood. Come, this sweet place of cobweb-shadows leave Until the welcome eve Brings us from where the ghosts of lost Springs roam To glean the fruit that we at noontide strewed And lift our loads between us and go home. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...WAITRESSING IN THE ROOM WITH A THOUSAND MOONS by MATTHEA HARVEY CANDIED YAMS' by TERRANCE HAYES DINNER OF HERBS by LOUISE MOREY BOWMAN THE BANQUET SONG by KENNETH KOCH SPLITTING AN ORDER by TED KOOSER |
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