A FLOWER OF THE FIELDS.

Bee-bitten in the orchard hung

The peach; or, fallen in the weeds,

Lay rotting: where still sucked and sung

The gray bee, boring to its seed's

Pink pulp and honey blackly stung.

The orchard path, which led around

The garden,— with its heat one twinge

Of dinning locusts,— picket-bound,

And ragged, brought me where one hinge

Held up the gate that scraped the ground.

All seemed the same: the martin-box —

Sun-warped with pigmy balconies —

Still stood with all its twittering flocks,

Perched on its pole above the peas

And silvery-seeded onion-stocks.

The clove-pink and the rose; the clump

Of coppery sunflowers, with the heat

Sick to the heart: the garden stump,

Red with geranium-pots and sweet

With moss and ferns, this side the pump.

I rested, with one hesitant hand

Upon the gate. The lonesome day,

Droning with insects, made the land

One dry stagnation; soaked with hay

And scents of weeds, the hot wind fanned.

I breathed the sultry scents, my eyes

Parched as my lips. And yet I felt

My limbs were ice. As one who flies

To some strange woe. How sleepy smelt

The hay-sweet heat that soaked the skies!

Noon nodded; dreamier, lonesomer,

For one long, plaintive, forestside

Bird-quaver.— And I knew me near

Some heartbreak anguish... She had died.

I felt it, and no need to hear!

I passed the quince and peartree; where

All up the porch a grape-vine trails —

How strange that fruit, whatever air

Or earth it grows in, never fails

To find its native flavor there!

And she was as a flower, too,

That grows its proper bloom and scent

No matter what the soil: she, who,

Born better than her place, still lent

Grace to the lowliness she knew....

They met me at the porch, and were

Sad-eyed with weeping. Then the room

Shut out the country's heat and purr,

And left light stricken into gloom —

So love and I might look on her.