Even in the moment of our earliest kiss,
When sighed the straitened bud into the flower,
Sat the dry seed of most unwelcome this;
And that I knew, though not the day and hour.
Too season-wise am I, being country-bred,
To tilt at autumn or defy the frost:
Snuffing the chill even as my fathers did,
I say with them, "What's out tonight is lost."
I only hoped, with the mild hope of all
Who watch the leaf take shape upon the tree,
A fairer summer and a later fall
Than in these parts a man is apt to see,
And sunny clusters ripened for the wine:
I tell you this across the blackened vine.
How often do we think back and recall our early hesitations, which we had forgotten in haste with the heat of new love? Vincent truly was country-bred, and even at her final home at Steepletop maintained beautiful and elaborate outdoor gardens. Here she likens the eternal hope of a growing spring to the hope of a new romance, but in retrospect. Fall has come, the vines are black, love has expired.
