Your Laurel Hedge, with its broad leaves, Keeps fresh and green from year to year; While that poor Wayside, Mongrel hedge, In Winter time goes thin and bare. But when October's in his prime, How beautiful that Mongrel grows — Where Blackberry, Thorn and other leaves Can make a hundred shining hues! In singles, twins, and triplets too, In bunch and cluster, high and low, I see his fruits in heavy folds, Or fluttering lightly to and fro. The Apple with her beauty-moles, The beady Currant, glassy-eyed; The golden Corn, all naked there, Without a leaf on either side. The nippled Pear and misty Plum, The yellow Quince and Cherry red; The crimson Strawberry, full of dimples, Now lying so low in her bed. Let no man touch this Mongrel now, Nor dare to pick his fruit, for fear That Wizard turns his gorgeous feast To shrivelled leaves, all limp and sere. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE SHEPHEARDES CALENDER: JULY by EDMUND SPENSER MY PRAYER by HENRY DAVID THOREAU THIS COMPOST: 2. by WALT WHITMAN ON BEING ASKED IF ONE WAS A NUMBER, REPLY TO MR. HOUGHTON by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD OCTOBER by MARIE DAVIES WARREN BECKNER YESTERDAY by CHARLES GRANGER BLANDEN |