I'm not on my confession, And therefore need not say How tired, and cross, and sleepy, Some were ere close of day; For pleasure has its ending, And eke its troubles too; Which you'll find out, my children, As well as we could do. But yet this very minute, I seem to see it all-- The pear-tree's empty branches The gray of evening-fall; The children's homeward silence, The furnace fires that glowed, Each mile or so, out streaming Across the lonely road; And high, high set in heaven, One large bright, beauteous star, That shone between the curtains Of old Llewellyn's car. THE WONDERFUL APPLE-TREE.[A] COME here, my dear boys, and I'll tell you a fable, Which you may believe as much as you're able; It isn't all true, nor all false, I'll be bound-- Of the tree that bears apples all the year round. There was a Dean Tucker of Gloster city, Who may have been wise, or worthy, or witty; But I know nothing of him, the more's the pity, Save that he was Dean Tucker of Gloster city. And walking one day with a musing air In his Deanery garden, close by where The great cathedral's west window's seen,-- "I'll plant an apple," said Tucker the Dean. The apple was planted, the apple grew, A stout young tree, full of leaves not few; The apple was grafted, the apple bore Of goodly apples, one, two, three, four. The old Dean walked in his garden fair, "I'm glad I planted that young tree there, Though it was but a shoot, or some old tree's sucker; I'll taste it to-morrow," said good Dean Tucker. But lo, in the night when (they say) trees talk, And some of the liveliest get up and walk, With fairies abroad for watch and warden-- There was such a commotion in the Dean's garden! "I will not be gathered," the apple-tree said, "Was it for this I blossomed so red? Hung out my fruit all the summer days, Got so much sunshine, and pleasure and praise?" "Ah!" interrupted a solemn red plum, "This is the end to which all of us come; Last month I was laden with hundreds--but now"-- And he sighed the last little plum off from his bough. "Nay, friend, take it easy," the pear-tree replied (A lady-like person against the wall-side). "Man guards, nurtures, trains us from top down to root: I think 'tis but fair we should give him our fruit." "No, I'll not be gathered," the apple resumed, And shook his young branches, and fluttered and fumed; "And I'll not drop neither, as some of you drop, Over-ripe: I'm determined to keep my whole crop.