Poems on Park

My Garden—like the Beach—
Denotes there be—a Sea—
That's Summer—
Such as These—the Pearls
She fetches—such as Me

by Emily Dickinson.

This cabin, Mary, in my sight appears,
Built as it has been in our waning years,
A rest afforded to our weary feet,
Preliminary to--the last retreat.

by William Cowper.

Heartsease in my garden bed,
With sweetwilliam white and red,
Honeysuckle on my wall: -
Heartsease blossoms in my heart
When sweet William comes to call,
But it withers when we part,
And the honey-trumpets fall.

by Christina Georgina Rossetti.

WE have a little garden,
A garden of our own,
And every day we water there
The seeds that we have sown.

WE love our little garden,
And tend it with such care,
You will not find a faced leaf
Or blighted blossom there.

by Beatrix Potter.

O little plum tree in the garden, you're
Aflower again,
With memories of a million springs and my
Brief years of pain.
O little tree, you have the power to find
Your youth again,
Grow young, while I grow old in tenderness
And wise in pain.

by Lesbia Harford.

THOUGHT is a garden wide and old
For airy creatures to explore,
Where grow the great fantastic flowers
With truth for honey at the core.

There like a wild marauding bee
Made desperate by hungry fears,
From gorgeous If to dark Perhaps
I blunder down the dusk of years.

by Bliss William Carman.

99

New feet within my garden go—
New fingers stir the sod—
A Troubadour upon the Elm
Betrays the solitude.

New children play upon the green—
New Weary sleep below—
And still the pensive Spring returns—
And still the punctual snow!

by Emily Dickinson.

Buildings above the leafless trees
Loom high as castles in a dream,

While one by one the lamps come out
To thread the twilight with a gleam.

There is no sign of leaf or bud,
A hush is over everything--

Silent as women wait for love,
The world is waiting for the spring.

by Sara Teasdale.

Out in the garden,
Out in the windy, swinging dark,
Under the trees and over the flower-beds,
Over the grass and under the hedge border,
Someone is sweeping, sweeping,
Some old gardener.
Out in the windy, swinging dark,
Someone is secretly putting in order,
Someone is creeping, creeping.

by Katherine Mansfield.

HIBISCUS flowers are cups of fire,
(Love me, my lover, life will not stay)
The bright poinsettia shakes in the wind,
A scarlet leaf is blowing away.
A lizard lifts his head and listens—
Kiss me before the noon goes by,
Here in the shade of the ceiba hide me
From the great black vulture circling the sky.

by Sara Teasdale.

The city mouse lives in a house; -
The garden mouse lives in a bower,
He's friendly with the frogs and toads,
And sees the pretty plants in flower.

The city mouse eats bread and cheese; -
The garden mouse eats what he can;
We will not grudge him seeds and stalks,
Poor little timid furry man.

by Christina Georgina Rossetti.

Excerpt from "Maud"

She is coming, my own, my sweet;
Were it ever so airy a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat,
Were it earth in an earthy bed;
My dust would hear her and beat,
Had I lain for a century dead,
Would start and tremble under her feet,
And blossom in purple and red.

by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Hiding under the hill,
Heavy with trailing robes and tangled veils of green,
Till only its little haggard face was visible,
The garden lay shy and wistful,
Lovelorn for summer departing,
Blowing its little trickling fountain tune into the air.
And over all, hushing, soothing,
Lay the clematis
Like early snow.

by Harriet Monroe.

MY heart is a garden of dreams
Where you walk when day is done,
Fair as the royal flowers,
Calm as the lingering sun.
Never a drouth comes there,
Nor any frost that mars,
Only the wind of love
Under the early stars,—
The living breath that moves
Whispering to and fro,
Like the voice of God in the dusk
Of the garden long ago.

by Bliss William Carman.

WHEN Thomas set this tablet here,
Time laughed at the vain chanticleer;
And ere the moss had dimmed the stone,
Time had defaced that garrison.
Now I in turn keep watch and ward
In my red house, in my walled yard
Of sunflowers, sitting here at ease
With friends and my bright canvases.
But hark, and you may hear quite plain
Time's chuckled laughter in the lane.

by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Ay, ay, ay, the lilies of the garden
With red threads binding them and stars about,
These shall be her symbols, for she is high and holy,
Holy in her maidenhood and very full of doubt.
Ay, ay, ay, for she is very girlish
Fearful her heart's lilies should be stained by sin.
Yet will I bind them with rosy threads of passion.
Surely human passion has a right to enter in.

by Lesbia Harford.

Ye lib'ral souls who rev'rence Friendship's name,
Who boast her blessings, and who feel her flame;
Oh! if from early youth one friend you've lov'd,
Whom warm affection chose, and taste approv'd;
If you have known what anguish rends the heart,
When such, so known, so lov'd, for ever part;
Approach! - For you the mourner rears this stone,
To soothe your sorrows, and record his own.

by Hannah More.

Girl, with the soft grey eyes,
You to the flowers belong:
From the perfume of a rose
My heart shall weave you a song.
I will colour its words with light,
Like the sun on that straying tress.
The wind will lend me its harp
To set it in loveliness.

It shall fold you soft as the mist,
Yet stir your heart like the sea,
Till lips that never were kissed
Shall yeld their homage to me.

by George Essex Evans.

MY heart is a garden tired with autumn,
Heaped with bending asters and dahlias heavy and dark,
In the hazy sunshine, the garden remembers April,
The drench of rains and a snow-drop quick and clear as a spark;
Daffodils blowing in the cold wind of morning,
And golden tulips, goblets holding the rain—
The garden will be hushed with snow, forgotten soon, forgotten—
After the stillness, will spring come again?

by Sara Teasdale.

God's garden is this dim old wood,
And hidden in its bosom
The bursting bud, the feathery leaf
And soft, sweet smelling blossom.

Ho! May is fair, and glorious June,
In rose leaves doth enfold her;
Their bloom is richer than my own,
But mine is sweeter, bolder.

God's garden is this dim old wood,
And I, the pretty vagrant,
I am the gardener He sends
To make it fair and fragrant.

by Jean Blewett.

For W. P.

The little park was filled with peace,
The walks were carpeted with snow,
But every iron gate was locked.
Lest if we entered, peace would go.

We circled it a dozen times,
The wind was blowing from the sea,
I only felt your restless eyes
Whose love was like a cloak for me.

Oh heavy gates that fate has locked
To bar the joy we may not win,
Peace would go out forevermore
If we should dare to enter in.

by Sara Teasdale.

Its former green is blue and thin,
And its once firm legs sink in and in;
Soon it will break down unaware,
Soon it will break down unaware.

At night when reddest flowers are black
Those who once sat thereon come back;
Quite a row of them sitting there,
Quite a row of them sitting there.

With them the seat does not break down,
Nor winter freeze them, nor floods drown,
For they are as light as upper air,
They are as light as upper air!

by Thomas Hardy.

The white mist walks between the trees
In silver gown;
Her mystic floating draperies
The branches drown;
And lurking there with eager leer
And wonder new,
The lamps inquisitively peer
Their fingers through.
The world sighs wearily, with pain
Drawing tired breath;
The stars are like a silver rain;
And down beneath
On Night's smooth garment running o'er
In sullen flood,
The city, like a festering sore,
Oozes warm blood.

by Arthur Henry Adams.

See how the pair of billing doves
With open murmurs own their loves;
And, heedless of censorious eyes,
Pursue their unpolluted joys;
No fears of future want molest
The downy quiet of their nest:
No int'rest join'd the happy pair,
Securely blest in Nature's care,
While her dictates they pursue;
For constancy is Nature too.
Can all the doctrine of the schools,
Our maxims, our religious rules,
Can learning to our lives ensure,
Virtue so bright, or bliss so pure?

by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.

I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen;
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this Chapel were shut
And 'Thou shalt not,' writ over the door;
So I turned to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore.

And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tombstones where flowers should be;
And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires.

by William Blake.

Rose-Bloom and lily-bloom
Sway upon the stalk,
Swinging censers of perfume
Down the garden-walk.

Swathed all in silver mist
Of the moonlit night;
By the molten sunbeams kist-
O the rapt delight!
. . . . . .

What bodes the shadow drear
Creeping o’er the skies?
Flower of frost, or frozen tear
On the ground that lies?

Rose-leaf and lily-leaf
Stricken from the stem,
Wild the wide and wintry grief
That has come to them.

by Ina D. Coolbrith.

I know the garden-close of sin,
The cloying fruits, the noxious flowers,
I long have roamed the walks and bowers,
Desiring what no man shall win:

A secret place to shelter in,
When soon or late the angry powers
Come down to seek the wretch who cowers,
Expecting judgment to begin.

The pleasure long has passed away
From flowers and fruit, each hour I dread
My doom will find me where I lie.
I dare not go, I dare not stay.
Without the walks, my hope is dead,
Within them, I myself must die.

by Robert Fuller Murray.

When Naboth's vineyard look'd so fine,
The king cried out, 'Would this were mine!'
And yet no reason could prevail
To bring the owner to a sale.
Jezebel saw, with haughty pride,
How Ahab grieved to be denied;
And thus accosted him with scorn:
'Shall Naboth make a monarch mourn?
A king, and weep! The ground's your own;
I'll vest the garden in the crown.'
With that she hatch'd a plot, and made
Poor Naboth answer with his head;
And when his harmless blood was spilt,
The ground became his forfeit guilt.

by Jonathan Swift.

Beside a Dial in the leafy close,
Where every bush was burning with the Rose,
With million roses falling flake by flake
Upon the lawn in fading summer snows:

I read the Persian Poet's rhyme of old,
Each thought a ruby in a ring of gold--
Old thoughts so young, that, after all these years,
They're writ on every rose-leaf yet unrolled.

You may not know the secret tongue aright
The Sunbeams on their rosy tablets write;
Only a poet may perchance translate
Those ruby-tinted hieroglyphs of light.

by Mathilde Blind.

The prosperous and beautiful
To me seem not to wear
The yoke of conscience masterful,
Which galls me everywhere.

I cannot shake off the god;
On my neck he makes his seat;
I look at my face in the glass,
My eyes his eye-balls meet.

Enchanters! enchantresses!
Your gold makes you seem wise:
The morning mist within your grounds
More proudly rolls, more softly lies.

Yet spake yon purple mountain,
Yet said yon ancient wood,
That night or day, that love or crime
Lead all souls to the Good.

by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

One comes to love the little saints,
As years go by.
One learns to love the little saints.
'O hear me sigh,
St. Anthony,
Find this for me,
I wish you'd try.'
There must be many garden gods,
A gardener sees.
There'd have to be an orchard god. 'Divinities,
Take honour due.
The long year through
Protect these trees.'
The Mother and the Holy Child
Are friends to me.
I pray, 'I am my mother's child.
I trust you'll see
That days are bright
And all goes right
With her and me.'

by Lesbia Harford.

Some starlit garden grey with dew,
Some chamber flushed with wine and fire,
What matters where, so I and you
Are worthy our desire?

Behind, a past that scolds and jeers
For ungirt loins and lamps unlit;
In front, the unmanageable years,
The trap upon the Pit;

Think on the shame of dreams for deeds,
The scandal of unnatural strife,
The slur upon immortal needs,
The treason done to life:

Arise! no more a living lie,
And with me quicken and control
Some memory that shall magnify
The universal Soul.

by William Ernest Henley.

ABOUT the sheltered garden ground
The trees stand strangely still.
The vale ne'er seemed so deep before,
Nor yet so high the hill.

An awful sense of quietness,
A fulness of repose,
Breathes from the dewy garden-lawns,
The silent garden rows.

As the hoof-beats of a troop of horse
Heard far across a plain,
A nearer knowledge of great thoughts
Thrills vaguely through my brain.

I lean my head upon my arm,
My heart's too full to think;
Like the roar of seas, upon my heart
Doth the morning stillness sink.

by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Thrive, gentle plant! and weave a bower
For Mary and for me,
And deck with many a splendid flower
Thy foliage large and free.

Thou camest from Eartham, and wilt shade,
(If truly I divine,)
Some future day the illustrious head
Of him who made thee mine.

Should Daphne show a jealous frown,
And Envy seize the Bay,
Affirming none so fit to crown
Such honoured brows as they.

Thy cause with zeal we shall defend,
And with convincing power!
For why should not the Virgin's friend
Be crowned with Virgin's Bower?

by William Cowper.

IN the new garden, in all the parts,
In cities now, modern, I wander,
Though the second or third result, or still further, primitive yet,
Days, places, indifferent--though various, the same,
Time, Paradise, the Mannahatta, the prairies, finding me unchanged,
Death indifferent--Is it that I lived long since? Was I buried very
long ago?
For all that, I may now be watching you here, this moment;
For the future, with determined will, I seek--the woman of the
future,
You, born years, centuries after me, I seek.

by Walt Whitman.

50

I haven't told my garden yet—
Lest that should conquer me.
I haven't quite the strength now
To break it to the Bee—

I will not name it in the street
For shops would stare at me—
That one so shy—so ignorant
Should have the face to die.

The hillsides must not know it—
Where I have rambled so—
Nor tell the loving forests
The day that I shall go—

Nor lisp it at the table—
Nor heedless by the way
Hint that within the Riddle
One will walk today—

by Emily Dickinson.

Love heeds no more the sighing of the wind
Against the perfect flowers: thy garden's close
Is grown a wilderness, where none shall find
One strayed, last petal of one last year's rose.

O bright, bright hair! O mouth like a ripe fruit!
Can famine be so nigh to harvesting?
Love, that was songful, with a broken lute
In grass of graveyards goeth murmuring.

Let the wind blow against the perfect flowers,
And all thy garden change and glow with spring:
Love is grown blind with no more count of hours
Nor part in seed-time nor in harvesting.

by Ernest Christopher Dowson.

NIGHTINGALES warbled without,
Within was weeping for thee:
Shadows of three dead men
Walk'd in the walks with me:
Shadows of three dead men, and thou wast one of the three.

Nightingales sang in the woods:
The Master was far away:
Nightingales warbled and sang
Of a passion that lasts but a day;
Still in the house in his coffin the Prince of courtesy lay.

Two dead men have I known
In courtesy like to thee:
Two dead men have I loved
With a love that ever will be:
Three dead men have I loved, and thou art last of the three.

by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

My house, I say. But hark to the sunny doves
That make my roof the arena of their loves,
That gyre about the gable all day long
And fill the chimneys with their murmurous song:
Our house, they say; and mine, the cat declares
And spreads his golden fleece upon the chairs;
And mine the dog, and rises stiff with wrath
If any alien foot profane the path.
So, too, the buck that trimmed my terraces,
Our whilom gardener, called the garden his;
Who now, deposed, surveys my plain abode
And his late kingdom, only from the road.

by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Strange, is it not? She was making her garden,
Planting the old-fashioned flowers that day—
Bleeding-hearts tender and bachelors-buttons—
Spreading the seeds in the old-fashioned way.

Just in the old fashioned way, too, our quarrel
Grew until, angrily, she set me free—
Planting, indeed, bleeding hearts for the two of us,—
Ordaining bachelor’s buttons for me.

Envoi

Strange, was it not? But seeds planted in anger
Sour in the earth and, ere long, a decay
Withered the bleeding hearts, blighted the buttons,
And—we were wed—in the old-fashioned way.

by Ellis Parker Butler.