Poems (Hoffman)/Cherry Time

by Martha Lavinia Hoffman

CHERRY TIME
(In Santa Clara Valley)

Merrily mounting ladder and limb,
The cherry-picker swings his pail of tin,
 The chimney's purple spiral
 Curling through the morning mist,
 The wild rose-linnet's carol
 From the cherry orchard, list!
 Ripple of laugh and repartee
 Vibrating gaily from tree to tree,
 Maidens in fresh-ironed calicoes
 Sit in the packing-house in rows.
Merrily mounting ladder and limb,
The cherry-picker swings his pail of tin.

———

How often Virtue rears an humble stone,
In shade of Vice's sculptured mausoleum;
The greatest heroes Truth has ever known,
Error and Ignorance hastened to condemn.