Last night, just as the tints of autumns sky
Of sunset faded from our hills and streams,
I sat, vague listening, lapped in twilight dreams,
To the leafs rustle, and the crickets cry.
Then, like that basket, flush with summer fruit,
Dropped by the angels at the Prophets foot,
Came, unannounced, a gift of clustered sweetness,
Full-orbed, and glowing with the prisoned beams
Of summery suns, and rounded to completeness
By kisses of the south-wind and the dew.
Thrilled with a glad surprise, methought I knew
The pleasure of the homeward-turning Jew,
When Eshcols clusters on his shoulders lay,
Dropping their sweetness on his desert way.
I said, This fruit beseems no world of sin.
Its parent vine, rooted in Paradise,
Oercrept the wall, and never pai...