Apples Immortal

LET this tree live, thought the child;
Let the apples on this one tree never die.
And when winter came, and the cool mild
Dark of autumn paled out of heart and sky
And the fruit had fallen,
Lo, on that one tree the apples hung
Still red, still naked and wild,
Glowing against snow, like a sonata sung
By angels of a new angelic age,
Like the crimson script on a page
Torn from a lost book of miracles.
Dawn-flushed and young,
The apples gleamed in their ice, and swung
To the cold harp-thrum of the wind,
And the child walked through frozen orchard air
Where the fruit of all other trees had fallen
And all other trees were leafless and sullen,
And saw the boughs of that tree softly aflame
Willi a color immortal; saw that his tiny prayer
Had fixed against time one instant,
Had kept one thing the same, —
Beyond all touch, perhaps, past others’ knowing,
But sure, within his arch of faith,—
An image fixed in memory’s glowing
And heaven’s grace.