An Apple Gathering

An Apple Gathering

by Christina Rossetti, 1830 - 1894

 I plucked pink blossoms from mine apple-tree

    And wore them all that evening in my hair:

Then in due season when I went to see

        I found no apples there.

With dangling basket all along the grass

    As I had come I went the selfsame track:

My neighbours mocked me while they saw me pass

        So empty-handed back.

Lilian and Lilias smiled in trudging by,

    Their heaped-up basket teased me like a jeer;

Sweet-voiced they sang beneath the sunset sky,

        Their mother’s home was near.

Plump Gertrude passed me with her basket full,

    A stronger hand than hers helped it along;

A voice talked with her through the shadows cool

        More sweet to me than song.

Ah Willie, Willie, was my love less worth

    Than apples with their green leaves piled above?

I counted rosiest apples on the earth

        Of far less worth than love.

So once it was with me you stooped to talk

    Laughing and listening in this very lane:

To think that by this way we used to walk

        We shall not walk again!

I let me neighbours pass me, ones and twos

    And groups; the latest said the night grew chill,

And hastened: but I loitered, while the dews

        Fell fast I loitered still.