The hillside hung with woods and dreams,
Soft gleams of gossamer and dew;
From cockcrow to the rising moon
The rainbowed road for me and you.
Along the highroad all the day
The wagons filled with apples go,
And golden pumpkins and ripe corn,
And all the ruddy overflow
From Autumn's apron, as she goes
About her orchards and her fields,
And gathers into stack and barn
The treasure that the Summer yield.
A singing heart, a laughing road,
With salutations all the way,—
The gossip dog, the hidden bird,
The pig that grunts a gruff good-day;
The apple-ladder in the trees,
A friendly voice amid the boughs,
The farmer driving home his team,
The ducks, the geese, the uddered cows;
The silver babble of the creek,
The willow-whisper—the day's end,
With murmur of the village street,
A called good-night, an unseen friend_.
CHAPTER XII
ORCHARDS AND A LINE FROM VIRGIL
Orchards! We were walking to New York—through orchards. And we might have gone by train! A country of orchards and gold-dust sunshine falling through the quaint tapestry trees, falling dreamily on heaped-up gold, and the grave backs of little pigs joyously at large in the apple twilight. A drowsy, murmuring spell was on the land, the spell of fabled orchards, and of old enchanted gardens—
In the afternoon they came unto a land In which it seemed always afternoon—