An Apple Gathering

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 teased 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 through 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.