Take it in your sun-browned hand--
Shell from eastern tropic land.

Let your clear voice through it ring,
Homeward the hired help to bring
From the distant meadow-spring.

Far away they hear the call:
Look! they come by orchard wall,
Where the apple-blossoms fall.

One that foremost leads the plough
Sees you in the doorway now--
Breaks a bending apple-bough;

Waves it by the meadow creek:
Answering blushes on your cheek
Tell the words you do not speak.

Out upon the rippling river
Purple lights of sunset quiver,
Rustling leaves reflected shiver.

Shell in hand, she goes to greet
Her lover, where the turf-grown street
And the meadow pathway meet.

Insect voices far away,
Hushed in silence through the day,
Whisper in the night of May,