This Lane in May / David Morton

This Lane in May

A fragrance lingers, though the rains be done;
     And apple-trees have shaken from their hair
The thin and shining blossoms, one by one,
     Starring the roadway like a silver stair.
And something softer than the rain comes by,
     Older and dearer than these bright, new days:
An odour ... or a trick of lights that lie
     Familiar on these grass-grown, rutted ways.

This lane in May is such a haunted thing,
     For all the newness of the rain-wet trees:
An old, old May, remembered of the Spring,
     Returning ghostwise on such days as these,
Moves in the blowing odours where they pass,
Trailing these scattered blossoms in the grass.

~~

David Morton (1886-1957)

from Ships in Harbour, and other poems, 1921.

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada and the United States]

David Morton biography