Page:Poems Dorr.djvu/432

And the tree by the garden wall
Sees joy and grief befall.
Still from the spreading boughs
 Some golden apples swing;
But the children come no more
 For the autumn harvesting.
The tangled grass lies deep
Where the long path used to creep;
Yet ho! for the brave old apple-tree
That leans o'er the crumbling wall!

Now generations pass,
Like shadows on the grass.
What is there that remains
For all their toil and pains?
A little hollow place
 Where once a hearthstone lay;
An empty, silent space
 Whence life hath gone away;
Tall brambles where the lilacs grew,
Some fennel, and a clump of rue,
And this one gnarled old apple-tree
Where once was the garden wall!