RESPONDIT

Apple-tree, apple-tree, what is it worth:

Beauty and passion and red-lipped mirth,

Fashioned of fire and the blossoming earth,—

Gone in a transient spring?

Spending and spilling your wealth through the grass,

Coiner of coins that must rust and pass,—

Knowing the end is — alas, and alas!

What may a poet sing?

“Sing of the dust that is blossomy boughs,

Dust that is more than your thought allows;

Sing you for ever impossible vows

Unto the springs to be.

“Dust in the dust is for fire and birth,

Beauty and passion and red-lipped mirth,

Fashioned of dust for the blossoming earth,—

Even of you and me.”