Classic Poem

Apple-tree, apple-tree, what is it worth:
Beauty and passion and red-lipped mirth,
Fashioned of fire and the blossoming earth,--
Gone in a transient spring?

Spending and spilling your wealth through the grass,
Coiner of coins that must rust and pass,--
Knowing the end is--alas, and alas!
What may a poet sing?

"Sing of the dust that is blossomy boughs,
Dust that is more than your thought allows;
Sing you for ever impossible vows
Unto the springs to be.

"Dust in the dust is for fire and birth,
Beauty and passion and red-lipped mirth,
Fashioned of dust for the blossoming earth,--
Even of you and me."