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The fruit of the orchard is over-ripe, Elaine,
And leaves are crisping on the garden wall.
Leaves on the garden path are wet and rain
Drips from the low shrubs with a steady fall.
It is long, so long since I was here, Elaine,
Moles have gnawed the rose tree at its root;
You did not think that I would come again,
Least of all in the day of falling fruit.
From Caroling Dusk (Harper & Brothers, 1927), edited by Countee Cullen. This poem is in the public domain.
I
Once more, listening to the wind and rain,
Once more, you and I, and above the hurting sound
Of these comes back the throbbing of remembered rain,
Treasured rain falling on dark ground.
Once more, huddling birds upon the leaves
And summer trembling on a withered vine.
The hills are wroth; the stones have scored you bitterly
Because you looked upon the naked sun
Oblivious of them, because you did not see
The trees you touched or mountains that you walked upon.
But there will come a day of darkness in the land,
A day wherein remembered sun alone comes through
To mark the hills; then perhaps you’ll understand
Golgotha is a mountain, a purple mound
Almost out of sight.
One night they hanged two thieves there,
And another man.
Some women wept heavily that night;
Their tears are flowing still. They have made a river;
Once it covered me.
Then the people went away and left Golgotha