{28}

The March Orchard

UNLEAVED, undrooping, still, they stand,

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This stanch and patient pilgrim band;

October robbed them of their fruit,

November stripped them to the root,

The winter smote their helplessness

With furious ire and stormy stress,

And now they seem almost to stand

In sight of Summer’s Promised Land.

Yet seen through frosty window-panes,

When bared and bound in wintry chains,

Their lightsome spirits seemed to play

With February as with May.

The snow that turned the skies afrown

Enwrapt them in the softest down,

And rains that dulled the landscape o’er

But left them livelier than before.

But now this June-like day of March

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