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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
AFTERNOON IN A TREE, by SISTER MARIS STELLA Poet's Biography
First Line: If you have climbed a laden apple tree
Last Line: The tribe of those who neither reap nor sow.
Alternate Author Name(s): Smith, Alice Gustava
Subject(s): Birds
First Line: If you have climbed a laden apple tree
Last Line: The tribe of those who neither reap nor sow.
Alternate Author Name(s): Smith, Alice Gustava
Subject(s): Birds
If you have climbed a laden apple tree
And worked your way through branches intertwined,
You will excuse the prodigality
Of flickers, grackles, and all much maligned
Orchard thieves who tipple where they will,
Leaving three-cornered holes in the red sun-dapples
Where they have pecked with epicurean bill,
And sucked warm cider sweetening in new apples.
You will excuse, and you will envy, too,
From your secure bough, every flying thing
That drops down with a furtive eye on you,
To apples beyond your reach . . . tastes them . . . takes wing. . . .
You are an alien in this air where go
The tribe of those who neither reap nor sow.
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