When the weight of the apples breaks down the boughs,
And muskmelons split with sweet;
And the moon is a light in Heaven's house,
And summer has spent its heat—
It's oh, for the lane, the trysting lane,
The deep-mooned night and her love again!
THE WINDOW ON THE HILL
Among the fields the camomile
Seems blown mist in the lightning's glare:
Cool, rainy odors drench the air;
Night speaks above; the angry smile
Of storm within her stare.
The way that I shall take to-night
Is through the wood whose branches fill
The road with double darkness, till,
Between the boughs, a window's light
Shines out upon the hill.
The fence; and then the path that goes
Around a trailer-tangled rock,
Through puckered pink and hollyhock,
Unto a latch-gate's unkempt rose,
And door whereat I knock.
Bright on the oldtime flower place
The lamp streams through the foggy pane;
The door is opened to the rain:
And in the door—her happy face
And outstretched arms again.
THE PICTURE
Above her, pearl and rose the heavens lay:
Around her, flowers flattered earth with gold,
Or down the path in insolence held sway—
Like cavaliers who ride the king's highway—
Scarlet and buff, within a garden old.
Beyond the hills, faint-heard through belts of wood,
Bells, Sabbath-sweet, swooned from some far-off town:
Gamboge and gold, broad sunset colors strewed
The purple west as if, with God imbued,
Her mighty palette Nature there laid down.
Amid such flowers, underneath such skies,
Embodying all life knows of sweet and fair,
She stood; love's dreams in girlhood's face and eyes,
Fair as a star that comes to emphasize
The mingled beauty of the earth and air.