And this is Fame! A thing indeed, That only comes when least the need: The wisest minds of every age The book of life from page to page Have searched in vain; each lesson conned Will promise it the page beyond-- Until the last, when dusk of night Falls over it, and reason's light Is smothered by that unknown friend Who signs his nom de plume, The End. _The Ripest Peach_ The ripest peach is highest on the tree-- And so her love, beyond the reach of me, Is dearest in my sight. Sweet breezes bow Her heart down to me where I worship now! She looms aloft where every eye may see The ripest peach is highest on the tree. Such fruitage as her love I know, alas! I may not reach here from the orchard grass. I drink the sunshine showered past her lips As roses drain the dewdrop as it drips. The ripest peach is highest on the tree, And so mine eyes gaze upward eagerly. Why-- why do I not turn away in wrath And pluck some heart here hanging in my path--? Lover's lower boughs bend with them-- but, ah me! The ripest peach is highest on the tree! _A Fruit Piece_ The afternoon of summer folds Its warm arms round the marigolds, And with its gleaming fingers, pets The watered pinks and violets That from the casement vases spill, Over the cottage window-sill, Their fragrance down the garden walks Where droop the dry-mouthed hollyhocks. How vividly the sunshine scrawls The grape-vine shadows on the walls! How like a truant swings the breeze In high boughs of the apple-trees! The slender "free-stone" lifts aloof, Full languidly above the roof, A hoard of fruitage, stamped with gold And precious mintings manifold. High up, through curled green leaves, a pear Hangs hot with ripeness here and there. Beneath the sagging trellisings, In lush, lack-lustre clusterings, Great torpid grapes, all fattened through With moon and sunshine, shade and dew, Until their swollen girths express But forms of limp deliciousness-- Drugged to an indolence divine With heaven's own sacramental wine. _Their Sweet Sorrow_ They meet to say farewell: Their way Of saying this is hard to say--. He holds her hand an Instant, wholly Distressed-- and she unclasps it slowly, He lends his gaze evasively Over the printed page that she Recurs to, with a new-moon shoulder Glimpsed from the lace-mists that infold her. The clock, beneath its crystal cup, Discreetly clicks-- "Quick! Act! Speak up!" A tension circles both her slender Wrists-- and her raised eyes flash in splendor, Even as he feels his dazzled own--. Then blindingly, round either thrown, They feel a stress of arms that ever Strain tremblingly-- and "Never! Never!" Is whispered brokenly, with half A sob, like a belated laugh--, While cloyingly their blurred kiss closes--, Sweet as the dew's lip to the rose's. _John McKeen_