Padraic Colum

“ One day, Pomona saw outside her gate a bent and weary-looking old woman. She had on a head-dress that fell across her eyes, and she leaned upon a stick. Pomona, the kindliest of the nymphs, asked her to sit in the shade of one of her trees and rest herself and eat some of her fruit. The old woman came within. "How beautifully your garden is kept!" she said. "I have never been where trees grew so well, or where the fruits looked so bright and so refreshing. Do you live here all alone, my dear?" ”

“ So you see what good comes of mating two beings--the vine and the elm-tree. But you, my dear, refuse to be mated, refuse to be wedded, refuse even to know one who might be a sweetheart for you! Listen! Consent to having an old woman like me make a match for you!"
Pomona was so surprised to have someone talk to her in this strain that she sank down on the grass beside the old woman. "Be wise and choose Vertumnus! I know the lad well--I know him as well as I know myself! He is a lad who does not wander idly through the world. He has wide spaces to live in, and he dwells near at hand! ”

“ She would loosen the earth round the roots of some of her trees; she would cut away growth that was too luxurious; sometimes she would make a cut in a tree and would graft into it a twig from another tree, and she would rejoice to see one tree bearing two kinds of fruit. Sometimes she would train a vine to grow along an elm-tree. ”