Page:Anthology of Magazine Verse (1921).djvu/119

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What path of mine but knows my debt?
 How far apart my cores were thrown!
Town, meadow, peak, shore,
 Road, trail, wayside stone,
  Hearth, desk, even bed
(Shudder, Prissy) knew my needs,
And not a core but showed the seeds.
 Milk and honey, wine and bread!
 Wherefore, in the Roman way
 Deal with him who cannot pay—
The debtor's body for the debt:
 After all, bury me
 (If that is all, and this is me)
 Underneath an Apple Tree.

 There is more, as I think:
When I am done with meat and drink
Such as beasts have, there shall be
Other Apples waiting me
 No bodiless ghost can eat of them,
So I shall haunt my burial-tree
 Until the first spring-noon is warm:
My body's master-essences
 Shall climb through bole and branch and stem,
 Slip through soft blossom-throats, and form
About me, at command. How far,
I wonder, those bright Other Orchards are?

Contemporary VerseWilliam Laird


THE TOO HIGH
That bird in the maple next my eaves,
 Last bud-break of May,
At faintest of first dawn, one perceives,
Loved—in his rapture of life and leaves—
 As I love to-day.

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