The Dark Garden

When your head leans back slowly, and gazing eyes
Muse earnest upon mine and starry swim
With depths unfathomed that still well and rise,
And the words fail, and sight with love grows dim,

Whence comes that almost sadness, almost wound
Of joy, whose thoughts sink like the wearied flight
Of birds on seas, lost in love's deeps profound,
Inscrutable as odours blown through night?

We know not: and we know not whence love rose
Pouring its beauty over us, as the moon
On this dim garden rises, and none knows
Where she was wandering, those blind nights of June.

Hush, hush, the mystery of life is here:
Our sacred joy kisses our sacred fear.

Down In A Shaded Garden

Down in a shaded garden
I laid upon earth my head:
The deep trees murmured, darkly fresh,
Over my bed;
I looked through living leaves to the sky,
Odours and songs were quivering nigh;
The warm grass touched my cheek as I lay
And care from me was far away.
As a child to its mother, to Earth I drew;
I felt her true.

Of Life, sweet Life, enamoured,
I closed my eyes, to feel
The sweetness pierce to the inmost veins
And the whole heart steal;
Sacred Life, more sweet and fair
Than all her children of earth and air,
Fountain dearer than joy in the breast,
In the blue I adored, in the grass I caressed:
Then Earth, my mother, leaned to my ear,
And spoke me clear.

To thee the rose her odour,
Her glory dedicates;
And thee the pink's sweet--budded fringe
Of snow awaits.
For thee is the sprinkled fire of the broom,
For thee the azalea burns her bloom;
O child, does thy heart not tell thee how
Thy joy is answered from every bough?
In the throat of the bird, in the sap of the tree,
'Tis all for thee!

Stricken with joy and wonder
I raised my eyes around,
And saw what mystery flowered for me
In that enchanted ground!
The roses, the roses, rich--entwined,
Heavy with love to me inclined;
Yearning up from the dusk of death
They trembled toward me with living breath.
O none that loved me is dead, I knew,
And each is true.