AN AFTERTHOUGHT ON APPLES
WHILE yet unfallen apples throng the bough,
To ripen as they cling
In lieu of the lost bloom, I ponder how
Myself did flower in so rough a spring;
And was not set in grace
When the first flush was gone from summer's face.
How in my tardy season, making one
Of a crude congregation, sour in sin,
I nodded like a green-clad mandarin,