John Drinkwater's Moonlit Apples

One of the poems Miranda Mills chose to read from The Country Commonplace Book was John Drinkwater's Moonlit Apples. 

John Drinkwater was a member of the Dymock Poets who were a group of early 20th century poets who lived in and around the village of Dymock, in Gloucestershire, England, just before and during the early years of World War I. Their work and lives are closely associated with nature, rural life, and a lyrical style that often contrasted with the horrors of the war that followed. The Dymock Poets also included Rupert Brooke, Lascelles Abercrombie, Edward Thomas, Robert Frost and Wilfrid Wilson Gibson. 

I have only recently started to enjoy Drinkwater's poetry and I have been puzzling about this. I love Edward Thomas, Rupert Brooke and Robert Frost, in particular, but I have never read any of John Drinkwater's poetry. Then I remembered....My Dad had a colleague called John Drinkwater and they didn't like each other very much, hence my unconscious aversion!

At the top of the house the apples are laid in rows,
And the skylight lets the moonlight in, and those
Apples are deep-sea apples of green. There goes
A cloud on the moon in the autumn night.

A mouse in the wainscot scratches, and scratches, and then
There is no sound at the top of the house of men
Or mice; and the cloud is blown, and the moon again
Dapples the apples with deep-sea light.

They are lying in rows there, under the gloomy beams;
On the sagging floor; they gather the silver streams
Out of the moon, those moonlit apples of dreams,
And quiet is the steep stair under.

In the corridors under there is nothing but sleep.
And stiller than ever on orchard boughs they keep
Tryst with the moon, and deep is the silence, deep
On moon-washed apples of wonder.

Such a beautiful poem, I'm looking forward to reading more of John Drinkwater's poetry.