Late in August, the gracious sun,
His pleasant task completing,
Smiled at the work so nearly done,
And reddened the apple-cheeks, every one,
With ripening kisses; and then begun
Was the feast of the high-top sweeting.

The fruit, with its flavor wild and sweet,
Was fit for a dryad's eating;
Scores of children, with eager feet,
Flocked beneath it, to pluck and eat;
And all the folk from the village street
Paused in passing, to taste the treat
Of the generous high-top sweeting.

And now, is the tree that loved us so,
Its summer tale repeating?
Or was its beautiful head laid low
By levelling tempests, long ago?
I cannot answer; but only know
That spring and summer will follow snow,
As changing seasons like billows flow,
But never another tree can grow
So fair as the high-top sweeting!

Of the children who played beneath it then,
In the days so bright and fleeting,
Some have vanished from mortal ken
Two brave boys of the nine or ten
Died in a Georgia prison-pen;
One in a Louisiana fen;
One starved, wandering in Darien;
One sleeps safe in her native glen;
The rest are grave-eyed women and men,
Wiser and sadder far than when
They played from sunrise till dark again
Under the high-top sweeting.

Finer apples may redden and fall
For happy children's eating,
But never a tree so brave and tall
Will grow, as that by the orchard wall,
The dear old tree that we used to call
The loveliest apple-tree of all,—
The marvellous high-top sweeting!