 | [Poems by Cary in] The Poetical Works Of Alice and Phoebe Cary |  |
THE OTHER SIDE.
I dreamed I had a plot of ground.
Once on a time, as story saith,
All closèd in and closèd round
With a great wall, as black as death.
Once on a time, as story saith,
All closèd in and closèd round
With a great wall, as black as death.
I saw a hundred mornings break,
So far a little dream may reach;
And, like a blush on some fair cheek,
The spring-time mantling over each.
So far a little dream may reach;
And, like a blush on some fair cheek,
The spring-time mantling over each.
Sweet vines o'erhung, like vernal floods,
The wall, I thought, and though I spied
The glorious promise of the buds,
They only bloomed the other side.
The wall, I thought, and though I spied
The glorious promise of the buds,
They only bloomed the other side.
Tears, torments, darkened all my ground,
Yet Heaven, by starts, above me gleamed;
I saw, with senses strangely bound,
And in my dreaming knew I dreamed.
Yet Heaven, by starts, above me gleamed;
I saw, with senses strangely bound,
And in my dreaming knew I dreamed.
Saying to my heart, these things are signs
Sent to instruct us that 't is ours
Duly to dress and keep our vines,
Waiting in patience for the flowers.
Sent to instruct us that 't is ours
Duly to dress and keep our vines,
Waiting in patience for the flowers.
227
But when the angel, feared by all,
Across my hearth his shadow spread,
The rose that climbed my garden wall
Had bloomed, the other side, I said.
Across my hearth his shadow spread,
The rose that climbed my garden wall
Had bloomed, the other side, I said.
| [Poems by Cary in] The Poetical Works Of Alice and Phoebe Cary | |