POMONA

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 32, 23 March 1942, Page 8

POMONA

The hives full of honey the stedding of .stacks The stubbles are bare to the sunshine again There's a wind in the branches that eddies and backs That whispers of autumn, that whispers of rain The orchards are mellow with red globes and yellow The matronly months of fulfilment are now, Sq avc must turn to their goddess and yearn to Pomona, beloved of the fruit-bur-dened bough. The swallows have gone from the cave and the spire From the garden has faded the pomp of high June . But crimson's the maple, the woods are afire And filling with wood-cock beneath the new moon - Folks say she lingers with berry- 1 stained fingers On field paths that clamber by cottage and croft Pomona dear maiden, whose brown arms are laden With fruit and with fulness for cellar and loft. Oh some may build altars for Dean

and some For Cyprian Venus who rose from the sea And some for the Muses, the learned and glum. No doubt they arc charming; I'd find them alarming And when did they offer to quench a man's thirst Pomona, provider of tanged autumn cider Our lady of apples is easily first. Since you'd offer libation this method is mine Go up bv the footpath (the high roads I shun) And ten miles of walking will show you her shrine All fun ayith a settle that faces the sun And absent if she be, an applecheeked Hebe Shall pour you her nectar, that ■winks and that SAA T irls She's broAvn and she's smiling, she s plump, she's beguiling perhaps not the goddess, but one of her girls.