I Crossed The Orchard Walking Home

I crossed the orchard, walking home,
    The rising moon was at my back,
The apples and the moonlight fell
    Together on the railroad track.

Then, speeding through the evening dews,
    A dozen lighted windows glide -
The East-bound flyer for New York,
    Soft as a magic-lantern slide.

New York! on through the sleeping flowers,
    Through echoing midnight on to noon;
How strange that yonder is New York,
    And here such silence and the moon.

Richard Le Gallienne

Richard Le Gallienne was an English author and poet born on January 20, 1866. Known for his lyrical poetry, he was a key figure in the literary circles of the fin de siècle. He contributed to the literary magazine 'The Yellow Book' and was involved with the Rhymers' Club, an influential group of London-based poets. His works often explored themes of beauty, love, and nature. His influence extended to both sides of the Atlantic, and he spent the latter part of his life in the United States, where he continued to write until his death on September 15, 1947.

Richard Le Gallienne

Ballade Of Love's Cloister

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

In A Copy Of Fitzgerald's "Omar"

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

The Quarrel

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

Sore In Need Was I Of A Faithful Friend

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

English

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Moonlit Apples

At the top of the house the apples are laid in rows,
And the skylight lets the moonlight in, and those
Apples are deep-sea apples of green. There goes
A cloud on the moon in the autumn night.

A mouse in the wainscot scratches, and scratches, and then
There is no sound at the top of the house of men
Or mice; and the cloud is blown, and the moon again
Dapples the apples with deep-sea light.

They are lying in rows there, under the gloomy beams;
On the sagging floor; they gather the silver streams
Out of the moon, those moonlit apples of dreams,
And quiet is the steep stair under.

In the corridors under there is nothing but sleep.
And stiller than ever on orchard boughs they keep
Tryst with the moon, and deep is the silence, deep
On moon-washed apples...

John Drinkwater

Sunset In The City

Above the town a monstrous wheel is turning,
With glowing spokes of red,
Low in the west its fiery axle burning;
And, lost amid the spaces overhead,
A vague white moth, the moon, is fluttering.

Above the town an azure sea is flowing,
'Mid long peninsulas of shining sand,
From opal unto pearl the moon is growing,
Dropped like a shell upon the changing strand.

Within the town the streets grow strange and haunted,
And, dark against the western lakes of green,
The buildings change to temples, and unwonted
Shadows and sounds creep in where day has been.

Within the town, the lamps of sin are flaring,
Poor foolish men that know not what ye are!
Tired traffic still upon his feet is faring -
Two lovers meet and kiss and watch a star.

Richard Le Gallienne

Evening In A Sugar Orchard

From where I lingered in a lull in march
outside the sugar-house one night for choice,
I called the fireman with a careful voice
And bade him leave the pan and stoke the arch:
'O fireman, give the fire another stoke,
And send more sparks up chimney with the smoke.'
I thought a few might tangle, as they did,
Among bare maple boughs, and in the rare
Hill atmosphere not cease to glow,
And so be added to the moon up there.
The moon, though slight, was moon enough to show
On every tree a bucket with a lid,
And on black ground a bear-skin rug of snow.
The sparks made no attempt to be the moon.
They were content to figure in the trees
As Leo, Orion, and the Pleiades.
And that was what the boughs were full of soon.

Robert Lee Frost

Home.

Among the fields the camomile
Seems blown steam in the lightning's glare.
Unusual odors drench the air.
Night speaks above; the angry smile
Of storm within her stare.

The way for me to-night? To-night,
Is through the wood whose branches fill
The road with dripping rain-drops. Till,
Between the boughs, a star-like light
Our home upon the hill.

The path for me to take? It goes
Around a trailer-tangled rock,
'Mid puckered pink and hollyhock,
Unto a latch-gate's unkempt rose,
And door whereat I knock.

Bright on the old-time flower-place
The lamp streams through the foggy pane.
The door is opened to the rain;
And in the door, her happy face,
And eager hands again.

Madison Julius Cawein

Home ...

'We're going home!' I heard two lovers say,
    They kissed their friends and bade them bright good-byes;
    I hid the deadly hunger in my eyes,
And, lest I might have killed them, turned away.
Ah, love! we too once gambolled home as they,
    Home from the town with such fair merchandise, -
    Wine and great grapes - the happy lover buys:
A little cosy feast to crown the day.

Yes! we had once a heaven we called a home
    Its empty rooms still haunt me like thine eyes,
When the last sunset softly faded there;
Each day I tread each empty haunted room,
        And now and then a little baby cries,
    Or laughs a lovely laughter worse to bear.

Richard Le Gallienne

In The City

Away from the silent hills and the talking of upland waters,
The high still stars and the lonely moon in her quarters,
I fly to the city, the streets, the faces, the towers;
And I leave behind me the hush and the dews and the flowers,
The mink that steals by the stream a-shimmer among the rocks,
The hawk o'er the barn-yard sailing, the little cub-bear and the fox,
The woodchuck and his burrow, and the little snake at noon,
And the house of the yellow-jacket, and the cricket's endless tune.

And what shall I find in the city that shall take the place of these?
O I shall find my love there, and fall at her silken knees,
And for the moon her breast, and for the stars her eyes,
And under her shadowed hair the gardens of Paradise.

Richard Le Gallienne