William Bell Scott

1811-1890 / Scotland

The Apple Tree

Let us lie upon the grass
Beneath this apple-tree,
To mark the shining white clouds pass,
Sailing in the high blue sea,
Through the net-work overhead
Of boughs and stems so thickly spread,
Flickering in the sunlit sheen,
Of yellow and green,
With apples clustered everywhere.
And now a bird
Darts into its nest up there;
We are neither seen nor heard,
But each callow little bill
Full well it knows,
And each must fill,
So off and away again it goes,
While we lie upon the grass,
Idle as we can be,
Watching only what may pass
Within this apple tree.
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