Poems (Forrest)/The fruit of day
THE FRUIT OF DAY
Night is the fruit of day, a shining fruit, Of a dark apple of the moonless hoursSprung from the mists of earth, a tree whose root Packed with the perfume of a million flowersDrinks at the well-spring of our secret thoughtTill, sap and stem, the final aim have wrought.
Where the blue bough of Heaven earthward dips, Dawn was the rosy pricking of the bud,The paling stars were clipt for silver pips, But when the warm noon came to mellow flood,It brought the petals of the finished flowerTill thrifty Twilight, in her moth-grey bower,
Moulds with mysterious fingers, Night's full globe Of blossom-trembling hedges by the rill,Where hands unseen have caught the stealthy robe That rustles, to hushed laughters, up the hill:Fate, plucking from Life's tree a varied lootWill drop into our laps our cherished fruit!
A child at play beside the long lagoon Finds Night come down a sun-kist apricotGrass-yellow as a lifting harvest moon All firm and wholesome flesh: no creeping rotMaking the roughened stone a tomb, to hideThe myriad writhing worms that lurk inside!
To one shall come the Apple of Desire Red-stained upon the ambers of its globe,Keeping within its core a smouldering fire To scorch the snout, that nozzles Circe's robe:A fatal circle is its pared rind,Where the slow seeds of lust their fruits shall find:
To one may fall an orange of the South Glistening mosaics packed within its sphere,Rich with the scarlets of a passionate mouth Or quivering rainbows, fashioned on a tear. . . .Because he cannot hope to build againThe castle towers that seemed so real—in Spain.
A purple plum Night flings the sailor-man; It cast white petals once in TokioEmblem of purity in Old Japan, But wanderers cannot reap the seed they sow. . . Too ripe for him to-day the earth-fruits come,Thirsting upon the flavour of a plum.
The scientist, as sere as dust by day, One might suspect of dessicated fruits,But he is dreaming back an English May, A stretch of dappled grass, and primrose roots,Night brings no husks to one who grasps at truthHis threaded cherries have the taste of youth!
Night is the fruit of day. So empty are The hands of some, Night brings them only sleep,Untrimmed the lamp—that might have been a star, Unborn the fruits, and buried, dry and deep,The shoot of promise. So they wake aloneTo barren acres where no seed was sown,
I often wonder what Night brings to you! With your still pools of thought where lilies glaeamEven at dawn your scattered blossoms blew Your bannered boughs on every wild wind stream—Surely you pluck from Day's prolific treesThe golden apples of Hesperides!