IN the last spring I ever knew, In those last days, I sat in the forsaken orchard Where beyond fields of greenery shimmered The hills at Miller's Ford; Just to muse on the apple tree With its ruined trunk and blasted branches, And shoots of green whose delicate blossoms Were sprinkled over the skeleton tangle, Never to grow in fruit. And there was I with my spirit girded By the flesh half dead, the senses numb, Yet thinking of youth and the earth in youth, -- Such phantom blossoms palely shining Over the lifeless boughs of Time. O earth that leaves us ere heaven takes us! Had I been only a tree to shiver With dreams of spring and a leafy youth, Then I had fallen in the cyclone Which swept me out of the soul's suspense Where it's neither earth nor heaven. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...GOOD FRIDAY, 1613. RIDING WESTWARD by JOHN DONNE EPITAPHS OF THE WAR, 1914-18: CONVOY ESCORT by RUDYARD KIPLING ANTONY AND [OR, TO] CLEOPATRA by WILLIAM HAINES LYTLE THE SMACK IN SCHOOL by WILLIAM PITT PALMER IN TIME OF GRIEF by LIZETTE WOODWORTH REESE THE GREAT FIGURE by WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS |