Childhood Memory

The sun shines alone in the afternoon,

And quietly the tone of the honey-bees wavers off.

In the garden the sisters' voices whisper -

There the boy listens in the wooden shed,

Still fevering over book and picture.

Weary the linden-trees wilt immersed in the blue.

A heron hangs motionless drowned in the ether,

By the fence fantastic shadow-shapes play.

The sisters go quietly into the house,

And soon their white clothes glimmer

Vaguely from bright rooms,

And confused the bushes' bluster dies down.

The boy strokes the cat's hair,

Bewitched by the mirror of her eyes.

An organ-sound far away on the hill

Lifts wonderfully into heaven.