Classic and Contemporary Poetry
PASTORAL OF THE ORCHARD, by ELINOR SWEETMAN First Line: How looked your love, sweet shepherd, yestereven Last Line: In the orchard by the shore! Variant Title(s): The Orchard By The Shore: A Pastoral Subject(s): Orchards | ||||||||
COLIN HOW looked your love, sweet Shepherd, yestereven, When under apple-boughs ye stole a tryst, While Hesper held the glowing gates of heaven Ere colder stars besprent its amethyst? Ah! happy one, how looked those lids ye kissed, And seemed her blush of half its rose bereaven By wan green glimmer and by meadow mist, From grassy floor, with leaves enshadowed o'er, Dim filtering through the seven-score trees and seven Of the orchard by the shore? SHEPHERD Colin, the grass was grey and wet the sod O'er which I heard her velvet footfall come; But heaven, where yet no pallid crescent rode, Flowered in fire behind the bloomless plum; There stirred no wing nor wind, the wood was dumb, Only blown roses shook their leaves abroad On stems more tender than an infant's thumb -- Soft leaves, soft hued, and curled like Cupid's lip; And each dim tree shed sweetness over me, From honey-dews that breathless boughs let slip In the orchard by the sea. COLIN Yea, Shepherd, I have seen how blossoms fold, And waded deep, where deep an orchard grows; But what of her whose sweet ye leave untold, Whose step fell softer than a south-wind blows? What of her beauty? -- saw ye not unrolled O'er little ears and throat a twine of gold? And wore her lip the blown or budded rose? O did she reach through balmy pear and peach, White arms for greeting -- did ye heaven hold In the orchard by the beach? SHEPHERD Nay, Colin, but I heard through walls of laurel A tide impassioned brimming silent spaces, Guessed its soft weight, and knew its hoarded coral Given and withdrawn to shyer farther places; Methought each wave shook loose in long embraces Wild trees and tangle over shells auroral, And never wave but held all heaven's faces, And seemed to sweep a mirrored moon asleep, To break and blanch among the wet wood-sorrel, In the orchard by the deep. COLIN O Shepherd, leave to speak of ocean-brede, And crescents gliding o'er the cold sea-floor; All men may watch a risen tide recede, And scarlet secrets of the deep explore. Were not your nymph's fair face and footstep more Than foam and flake within a garden weed? More sweet than hymning seas her sweet love-lore? Her hair, her hand, more soft than feathers fanned From sleeping doves, by small winds newly freed In the orchard by the strand? SHEPHERD O dull of soul and senseless! get thee gone! What though the lyre of him who loves be strung To deep of heaven and deep of sea -- alone The deep of love is ever more unsung! Such music lieth hush upon the tongue. No, by the gods! not thou, nor anyone Shall force these stammering lips to do it wrong, Nor babble o'er from common door to door What I, by favour of my gods, have known In the orchard by the shore! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE LOST ORCHARD by EDGAR LEE MASTERS IN THE ORCHARD by ANNE STEVENSON MY ORCHA'D IN LINDEN LEA by WILLIAM BARNES GOOD-BY AND KEEP COLD by ROBERT FROST AN ORCHARD AT AVIGNON by AGNES MARY F. ROBINSON OLD APPLE TREES by WILLIAM DEWITT SNODGRASS OF AN ORCHARD by KATHARINE TYNAN IN BLOOMING ORCHARDS by JOHN BURROUGHS |
|