University of Virginia Library

MY GARDEN.

Ye beeches fashioned by the storms,
Ye solemn oaks
So gnarled and twisted into demon forms
Through which the sunlight soaks
In summer, and ye guardian pines
That build a barrier to the northern blast,
Earth-fast,
Whereby it scarce can find an entry—
That stand in stubborn lines,
Like God's great peace as sentry;
Ye are my kin
And playmates, and one common shadow falls
As of a common sin
On me and on your sheltering walls.
Ye are my friends,
And ye and I
Grow still beneath the same blue equal sky,
And to no different ends
Put forth the shoots of tender trust
From dust
And darkness, into the sweet air
To clothe and make our bodies fair
And something better than the clod,
And feed the heart
Of man and life so close apart,
Not for ourselves but God.
We wrestle
Both with the winter winds and catch
And cling unto each other,
Or softly sleep and dimly nestle
And each as with a brother
Under the twilight in the cool and calm,
And breathe in balm
That silence cannot smother
One evening psalm
Unto the same dear Heaven that bows
In blessing on our languid brows.
Ye are my teachers too,
Wise with the hoary lessons of the past
Which prophets vainly woo
Until to you as children sent at last.
I learn
From yellow pages of your lichened boles,
The path of pilgrim souls;
What sufferings earn
By cross and loss and bitter bindings,
And daily losings that are findings;
What sin,
Which makes us all akin,
Has wrought with cruel moulding
And serpentine enfolding,
By which we thrive
Or do decay
And pass away
To rise renewed once more and re-alive;
What love,
The general pulse, the general law
Of crooning dove
And snowy maid
With love's new light and living awe
Impassioned and afraid,
Has turned to music and to song
That rolls the happy world along.
I read
And reap from your dear mossy books
The elemental forces of the mind,
That knead
And lead
From dusky nooks
Sweet natures blind,
To studies of the laughing brooks
And wisdom of the travelled wind.
Ye are my house,
My clothing and my bread,
Shared with the flitting moth and mouse
And song-birds overhead.
Yes, in your greenery of gloom
So soft and spacious,
So glad and gracious,
I with my cares and fantasies find room
For all their features,
And blighted feelings bloom
That hid like wounded creatures
In shadow, and again take shape
And in their freedom from their wounds escape.
The manna of your dew and scent
Is heavenly food
For every mood,
And fulness of a deep content.
But in the evening comes the Master down
To see His garden, as of old,
And then each tree in dainty gown
Before Him bends its green and gold
And lays its crown
Of praise and wonder,
And murmurs from the leaf-hid mould
That He may pass in peace thereunder.
And I,
Who see Him not but only guess
That He is beautiful and nigh
And comes to bless,
Yet mix my loyal sigh
With yours and melt into His Loveliness.
Dear Trees,
My sole companions, my sole friends,
When life has settled on the lees
That nothing mends,
In you I find
The sympathy I seek
Soft on my cheek
And medicine to my troubled mind;
There is a sanctuary in your sod
That feels no Fall,
And safe within your arms that call
I walk with God.
And ye, my flowers,
In architectured piles and orders
Obedient to your ivied borders,
That weave me bowers
Of pink and purple, white and red,
Spilled over every spacious bed
In broad profusion—
Ye are dear
In all the depths of your Divine seclusion,
From russet stem to starry tear
That glistens
High on some blue or crimson cup,
And gathers up
Deep in its tiny cell
Serenely curl'd
As in a fairy crucible
The grace and glory of the whole wide world.
Ye maiden flowers in pretty frocks,
My lady-smocks
And goldylocks,
I know
The passion and the glow
That through your veins with summer flow;
Ye hollyhocks,
My sentinels, that stand on guard
And brave the tempests when they blow,
However scarr'd;
I feel the spirit in my measure
That breathes through you and is life's treasure
And gives the sadness
With the gladness
Bound up in one white flame of pleasure,
And drinks of mirth and drinks of madness.
While far below you at your feet
Upon the misty plain
The murmurous city—street on street
Stands out a yellow stain.
But all its spires
And splendid towers
With all enchantments of the olden hours,
That burnt like fires
Their memoried scrawls
On scarpèd walls,
Are not to me one half as fair
As lightest air
That whispers round your fairy home,
Or magic sun's
Bright beam that runs
From root to petal
And makes each bloom a dazzling dome
Of precious metal.
For ye have suffering souls like mine
And are Divine,
And your Divinity
Breaks out in scarlet blushes,
Beneath the butterfly;
And in a verdure of intense virginity
Riots and rushes
Beyond the haze
That bounds my gaze
Out in the awful ocean of Infinity;
And in blue weather
Upon that shore,
We play together
And garner little sheaves of lore,
Or drink of the great common store
Tied by one tether
Of living love,
Which holds when lesser bonds go by
And links the gardener and his lush foxglove
One with each other and Eternity.
And O innumerous bees,
That haunt my flowers and trees
And chant your chimes
Among the limes,
And take the honey
Your own as well as mine,
To make me wine
Of joy that is not bought with money;
Throughout the times of history hums
The drowsy music of your drums,
A ceaseless roll
That murmurs all the ages round
And all their riper sweetness sums,
Upon the ever-lengthening scroll
Of happy sound,
When thunder claps of war that toll
To ruin and to death are drown'd.
O garden bright
With borrowed light,
Reflected still from Eden's bowers
And watered with its shining showers,
Thy bosom vernal
Or summer-clad
With trees and flowers and emerald sod,
Is but a shadow of the eternal
Sweet Paradise so green and glad,
Wherein hereafter I shall walk with God.