FALSE DAWN

(1)

MY apple trees have blossomed in a night,

And pale green moonlight bathes their rose and white

With a strange wine that makes the pulses throb.

A sleepy robin now mistakes the light,

And his soft doubting note sounds like a sob

Voicing the thought that draws my heart-strings tight.

(2)

What Life could give you is not yours to take

Nor mine to give—and yet to-night I wake

Remembering your giving. But the note

Of that moon-haunted robin must not shake

My calm belief that you—austere, remote—

Need nothing I can ever mar or make.