Pomona
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OH, the golden afternoon!- Like a ripened summer day That had fallen oversoon In the weedy orchard-way- As an apple, ripe in June. He had left his fishrod leant O'er the footlog by the spring- Clomb the hill-path's high ascent, Whence a voice, down showering, Lured him, wondering as he went. Not the voice of bee nor bird, Nay, nor voice of man nor child, Nor the creek's shoal-alto heard Blent with warblings sweet and wild Of the midstream, music-stirred. 'Twas a goddess! As the air Swirled to eddying silence, he Glimpsed about him, half aware Of some subtle sorcery Woven round him everywhere. Suavest slopes of pleasaunce, sown With long lines of fruited trees Weighed o'er grasses all unmown But by scythings of the breeze |
In prone swaths that flashed and shone Like silk locks of Faunus sleeked This, that way, and contrawise, Thro' whose bredes ambrosial leaked Oily amber sheens and dyes, Starred with petals purple-freaked. Here the bellflower swaped and swung, Greenly belfried high amid Thick leave in whose covert sung Hermit-thrush, or kathdid, Or the glowworm nightly clung. Here the damson, peach and pear; There the plum, in Tyrian tings, Like great grapes in clusters rare; and the metal-heavy quince Like a plummet dangled there. All ethereal, yet all Most material,- a theme Of some fabled festival- Save the fair face of his dream Smiling o'er the orchard wall. [Pomona - The Goddess of Fruit Trees Ed.] |
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(Thanks to Helen Seymour, a Pomona Village resident, for informing us about the poem.) |
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