Poetry: If Still Your Orchards Bear

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Brother, that breathe the August air
. . . Ten thousand years from now,
And smell--if still your orchards bear
. . . Tart apples on the bough--

The early windfall under the tree,
. . . And see the red fruit shine,
I cannot think your thoughts will be
. . . Much different from mine.

Should at that moment the full moon
. . . Step forth upon the hill,
And memories hard to bear at noon,
. . . By moonlight harder still,

Form in the shadows of the trees,--
. . . Things that you could not spare
And live, or so you thought, yet these
. . . All gone, and you still there,

A man no longer what he was,
. . . Nor yet the thing he'd planned,
The chilly apple from the grass
. . . Warmed by your living hand--

I think you will have need of tears;
. . . I think they will not flow;
Supposing in ten thousand years
. . . Men ache, as they do now.