A lady stood amid those crops—
Her voice was like a blue or pink
Glass window full of lollipops;
Her words were very strange, I think:
“Prince Paris, too, a fair-haired boy
Plucked me an apple from dark trees;
Since when their smoothness makes my joy;
If you will pluck me one of these
I’ll kiss you like a golden wind
As clear as any apples be.”
And now she haunts my singing mind—
And oh, she will not set me free.
XII
THE APE SEES THE FAT WOMAN
AMONG the dark and brilliant leaves,
Where flowers seem tinsel firework-sheaves,
Blond barley-sugar children stare
Through shining apple-trees, and there
A lady like a golden wind
Whose hair like apples tumbles kind,
And whose bright name, so I believe,
Is sometimes Venus, sometimes Eve,
Stands, her face furrowed like my own
With thoughts wherefrom strange seeds are sown,
Whence, long since, stars for bright flowers grew
Like periwinkles pink and blue,—