An Apple-Gathering Poem by Christina Georgina Rossetti

An Apple-Gathering

Rating: 3.0


I plucked pink blossoms from mine apple tree
And wore them all that evening in my hair:
Then in due season when I went to see
I found no apples there.
With dangling basket all along the grass
As I had come I went the selfsame track:
My neighbours mocked me while they saw me pass
So empty-handed back.

Lilian and Lilias smiled in trudging by,
Their heaped-up basket teazed me like a jeer;
Sweet-voiced they sang beneath the sunset sky,
Their mother's home was near.

Plump Gertrude passed me with her basket full,
A stronger hand than hers helped it along;
A voice talked with her thro' the shadows cool
More sweet to me than song.

Ah Willie, Willie, was my love less worth
Than apples with their green leaves piled above?
I counted rosiest apples on the earth
Of far less worth than love.

So once it was with me you stooped to talk
Laughing and listening in this very lane:
To think that by this way we used to walk
We shall not walk again!

I let my neighbours pass me, ones and twos
And groups; the latest said the night grew chill,
And hastened: but I loitered, while the dews
Fell fast I loitered still.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Subhas Chandra Chakra 20 September 2016

Ah Willie, Willie, was my love less worth Than apples with their green leaves piled above? I counted rosiest apples on the earth Of far less worth than love. A poem of great creativity. Thanks for sharing it with us.

1 0 Reply
Rajnish Manga 20 September 2016

It's indeed a nice poem spun around the poet's feelings about her apples, apple trees, her observations and her reactions to other ladies' activities in the neibourhood. I quote: I plucked pink blossoms from mine apple tree And wore them all that evening in my hair: I counted rosiest apples on the earth Of far less worth than love.

1 0 Reply
Akachukwu Lekwauwa 20 September 2016

the air around this is so pleasant. i enjoyed reading this poem

1 0 Reply
Edward Kofi Louis 20 September 2016

Mine apple tree! ! Thanks for sharing this poem with us.

1 0 Reply
Skip Hughes 30 July 2018

Suddenly moving, quietly powerful.

0 0 Reply
Rian Harrison 22 October 2016

This poem seems both a statement of Victorian sexual mores and a lament over them.

0 0 Reply
Mizzy ........ 20 September 2016

A beautiful poem of love regret.....

1 0 Reply
Seamus O Brian 20 September 2016

To sow into a relationship and lose not only what you have sown but the relationship itself, is so much more palpably painful when you watch the relationships of others bearing fruit. But I will believe she was adorable with those blossoms in her hair.

1 0 Reply
Gangadharan Nair Pulingat 20 September 2016

The good love about the apple tree that gives sweet apples and different thoughts are interesting.

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