I plucked pink blossoms from mine apple tree <br />And wore them all that evening in my hair: <br />Then in due season when I went to see <br />I found no apples there. <br />With dangling basket all along the grass <br />As I had come I went the selfsame track: <br />My neighbours mocked me while they saw me pass <br />So empty-handed back. <br /> <br />Lilian and Lilias smiled in trudging by, <br />Their heaped-up basket teazed me like a jeer; <br />Sweet-voiced they sang beneath the sunset sky, <br />Their mother's home was near. <br /> <br />Plump Gertrude passed me with her basket full, <br />A stronger hand than hers helped it along; <br />A voice talked with her thro' the shadows cool <br />More sweet to me than song. <br /> <br />Ah Willie, Willie, was my love less worth <br />Than apples with their green leaves piled above? <br />I counted rosiest apples on the earth <br />Of far less worth than love. <br /> <br />So once it was with me you stooped to talk <br />Laughing and listening in this very lane: <br />To think that by this way we used to walk <br />We shall not walk again! <br /> <br />I let my neighbours pass me, ones and twos <br />And groups; the latest said the night grew chill, <br />And hastened: but I loitered, while the dews <br />Fell fast I loitered still.<br /><br />Christina Georgina Rossetti<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/an-apple-gathering/
