AFTERNOON

by: Fannie Stearns Gifford (Davis)

OME one is coming to call.

 

Up the red brick path between daffodils dancing

I see white ruffles that blow:

A parasol, dipping against the sun.

It is some one stout, and warm in her new white gloves.

 

My old green apron is smudged with the garden-mould.

My hands are the hands of a peasant-woman. My hair

Comes tumbling down into my eyes.

 

I wish I could lie down flat like a child

And hide in the grass, while she rings and rings,

And sticks her card under the door with a sigh,

And puffs away down the path.

I wish -- but the parasol bobs,

And she bobs like a mandarin's lady,

Smiling and bridling and beckoning.

 

If I were a daffodil, in an apron of green and gold--

 

But there she stands on the path,

And her gloves are so new they squeak with newness and stoutness,

And I know she will talk of the weather and stay an hour--

 

If I were a daffodil--

Or a little cool blinking bug

Down in the daffodil leaves--

• Fannie Stearns Gifford (Davis):Bibliography - A bibliography of the works of Fannie Stearns Gifford.