A. Mary F. Robinson-Darmesteter (1857-1944). Songs, Ballads, and a Play (1888). III. An Orchard at Avignon. Alfred H. Miles, ed. 1907. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century

Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.

Songs, Ballads, and a Play (1888)
III. An Orchard at Avignon

By A. Mary F. Robinson-Darmesteter (1857–1944)


THE HILLS are white, but not with snow:
They are as pale in summer time,
For herb or grass may never grow
Upon their slopes of lime.

Within the circle of the hills	5
A ring, all flowering in a round,
An orchard-ring of almond fills
The plot of stony ground.

More fair than happier trees, I think,
Grown in well watered pasture land,	10
These parched and stunted branches, pink
Above the stones and sand.

O white, austere, ideal place,
Where very few will care to come,
Where spring hath lost the waving grace	15
She wears for us at home!

Fain would I sit and watch for hours
The holy whiteness of thy hills,
Their wreath of pale auroral flowers,
Their peace the silence fills.	20

A place of secret peace thou art,
Such peace as in an hour of pain
One moment fills the amazed heart,
And never comes again.