Cider Makers

When drifts the apple-breath, to steal again

Through fruit-crowned orchards, like fragrant wave,

And when on stilly nights

The falling fruit we hear ;

Then creak the rusty hinges, gape the doors

Of cider presses, slumbering and dim ;

And cobwebs tatter down

To shrivel in the light.

Through many a dusty vault the autumn sun

Launches a ruby shaft of eventide,

Determining shadowy shapes

Within the velvet gloom.

The presses heave, like cavern idols set

Above the granite troughs around their knees,

And seem to wake again

And stretch their giant limbs ;

For tide of life is running ; feet of men

Trample the orchard herbage, stamp and stain

That winds away and fades

Amongst the mossy boles.

Beneath the bough another harvest lies

In mounds and pools of light and scattered stars,

That gleam within the heart

Of every apple glade.

Shining behind the shadows, twinkling out

Where sunlight strokes the grass to emerald,

Or where, in garnered heap

The crimson apples flame.

Old ministrants of cider mysteries

Blend sweet and sour on immemorial plan,

And wrap the sacrifice

In woven horse-hair grey ;

And when the presses turn and grip and crush,

In rivulets the virgin cider flow,

While sunbeams twine thereon

A braid of trickling fire.

There is a hum and bustle through the vault ;

Great hairy arms knot up and heavy hands

Tug at the beams of oak

Upon their shining screws ;

While round each door the feathered people run -

White, spangled, bronze and coral red of comb -

Who from the pomace peck

A feast of nut-brown seeds.

Ripples the cider with a little sound,

Like the last, purring rill, that runs to catch

Within her silver bow

Ripples the cider, when the vat is drawn,

Translucently, as though crushed opal stones

Were melted ; then away

The racking to endure.

The ancient men who labour at the mill,

Have drunk from more than fifty cider brews,

Straining the massy beams

For half a century.

Where rays of light resolve the polished wood,

A fret of carving still their timbers show,

And, graved upon the grain

Are names of heroes fallen.

For many a varnished, mighty-shouldered man,

Who drove the press of bygone vintages,

The oak shall feel no more,

Yet still his life records.

And though no stone declares their sleeping-place

Under the darnel, yet the quick may read

How their old knives have set

A last memorial here.

Day upon day the curdled cider spurts,

The timbers grind and grunt, through the murk.

The towering screws throw down

Their cold and steely shine.

Then, flowing on and racked and racked again,

The cloudy liquors sparkle amber bright,

Till fore-glow the dawn

Is not more crystal clear.

The rites are ended ; barrels seem to bulge ;

Wet vats grow dry and weary beams are still,

Their chronicles enriched

With new recorded names.

Once more the doors are fast put home again

And quiet comes, to tempt solitude

Quick, peaceful, flickering things

That fear the voice of man.

The presses slumber and their fragrance fades ;

The shadowy mouse steals back his haunt ;

An empty knot-hole throws

The only ray of light,

When, red of eye on low November eaves,

The sun peeps through the naked apple boughs,

To flash a fleeting glance

That's lost in nothingness.

Patient Arachne, hanging on her thread,

One moment twinkles, like bead of gold ;

Then only fitful sounds