An Old-Fashioned Garden

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1. The End of the World Here, at the end of the world, The flowers bleed As if they were hearts, The hearts ooze a darkness Like india ink, & poets dip their pens in & they write. “Here, at the end of the world,” They write, Not knowing what it means. “Here, where the sky nurses on black milk, Where […]...
2. Eden is that old-fashioned House Eden is that old-fashioned House We dwell in every day Without suspecting our abode Until we drive away. How fair on looking back, the Day We sauntered from the Door Unconscious our returning, But discover it no more....
3. Like Some Old fashioned Miracle Like Some Old fashioned Miracle When Summertime is done Seems Summer’s Recollection And the Affairs of June As infinite Tradition As Cinderella’s Bays Or Little John of Lincoln Green Or Blue Beard’s Galleries Her Bees have a fictitious Hum Her Blossoms, like a Dream Elate us till we almost weep So plausible they seem Her […]...
4. God fashioned the ship of the world carefully God fashioned the ship of the world carefully. With the infinite skill of an All-Master Made He the hull and the sails, Held He the rudder Ready for adjustment. Erect stood He, scanning His work proudly. Then at fateful time a wrong called, And God turned, heeding. Lo, the ship, at this opportunity, slipped slyly, […]...
5. The Song of the Garden-Toad Down, down beneath the daisy beds, O hear the cries of pain! And moaning on the cinder-path They’re blind amid the rain. Can murmurs of the worms arise To higher hearts than mine? I wonder if that gardener hears Who made the mold all fine And packed each gentle seedling down So carefully in line? […]...
6. Miscast II My heart is like a cleft pomegranate Bleeding crimson seeds And dripping them on the ground. My heart gapes because it is ripe and over-full, And its seeds are bursting from it. But how is this other than a torment to me! I, who am shut up, with broken crockery, In a dark closet!...
7. In Bertram's Garden Jane looks down at her organdy skirt As if it somehow were the thing disgraced, For being there, on the floor, in the dirt, And she catches it up about her waist, Smooths it out along one hip, And pulls it over the crumpled slip. On the porch, green-shuttered, cool, Asleep is Bertram that bronze […]...
8. From Citron-Bower From citron-bower be her bed, Cut from branch of tree a-flower, Fashioned for her maidenhead. From Lydian apples, sweet of hue, Cut the width of board and lathe, Carve the feet from myrtle-wood. Let the palings of her bed Be quince and box-wood overlaid With the scented bark of yew. That all the wood in […]...
9. A Garden, Written after the Civil Wars SEE how the flowers, as at parade, Under their colours stand display’d: Each regiment in order grows, That of the tulip, pink, and rose. But when the vigilant patrol Of stars walks round about the pole, Their leaves, that to the stalks are curl’d, Seem to their staves the ensigns furl’d. Then in some flower’s […]...
10. Love Lies Bleeding Love lies bleeding in the bed whereover Roses lean with smiling mouths or pleading: Earth lies laughing where the sun’s dart clove her: Love lies bleeding. Stately shine his purple plumes, exceeding Pride of princes: nor shall maid or lover Find on earth a fairer sign worth heeding. Yet may love, sore wounded scarce recover […]...
11. A Girl's Garden A NEIGHBOR of mine in the village Likes to tell how one spring When she was a girl on the farm, she did A childlike thing. One day she asked her father To give her a garden plot To plant and tend and reap herself, And he said, “Why not?” In casting about for a […]...
12. The Village Garden To E. M. S. Here, where your garden fenced about and still is, Here, where the unmoved summer air is sweet With mixed delight of lavender and lilies, Dreaming I linger in the noontide heat. Of many summers are the trees recorders, The turf a carpet many summers wove; Old-fashioned blossoms cluster in the borders, […]...
13. Old-fashioned Requited Love I HAVE ransacked the encyclopedias And slid my fingers among topics and titles Looking for you. And the answer comes slow. There seems to be no answer. I shall ask the next banana peddler the who and the why of it. Or-the iceman with his iron tongs gripping a clear cube in summer sunlight-maybe he […]...
14. Buttons I HAVE been watching the war map slammed up for Advertising in front of the newspaper office. Buttons red and yellow buttons blue and black buttons Are shoved back and forth across the map. A laughing young man, sunny with freckles, Climbs a ladder, yells a joke to somebody in the crowd, And then fixes […]...
15. The Two Old Bachelors Two old Bachelors were living in one house; One caught a Muffin, the other caught a Mouse. Said he who caught the Muffin to him who caught the Mouse, – “This happens just in time! For we’ve nothing in the house, “Save a tiny slice of lemon and a teaspoonful of honey, “And what to […]...
16. Colors Passing Through Us Purple as tulips in May, mauve Into lush velvet, purple As the stain blackberries leave On the lips, on the hands, The purple of ripe grapes Sunlit and warm as flesh. Every day I will give you a color, Like a new flower in a bud vase On your desk. Every day I will paint […]...
17. The Sower Sure of the spring that warms them into birth, The golden seeds thou trustest to the earth; And dost thou doubt the eternal spring sublime, For deeds the seeds which wisdom sows in time....
18. Autumn in the Garden When the frosty kiss of Autumn in the dark Makes its mark On the flowers, and the misty morning grieves Over fallen leaves; Then my olden garden, where the golden soil Through the toil Of a hundred years is mellow, rich, and deep, Whispers in its sleep. ‘Mid the crumpled beds of marigold and phlox, […]...
19. Trickle, Drops TRICKLE, drops! my blue veins leaving! O drops of me! trickle, slow drops, Candid, from me falling-drip, bleeding drops, From wounds made to free you whence you were prison’d, From my face-from my forehead and lips, From my breast-from within where I was conceal’d-press forth, red drops-confession drops; Stain every page-stain every song I sing, […]...
20. Lausanne, In Gibbon's Old Garden: 11-12 p. m (The 110th anniversary of the completion of the “Decline and Fall” at the same hour and place) A spirit seems to pass, Formal in pose, but grave and grand withal: He contemplates a volume stout and tall, And far lamps fleck him through the thin acacias. Anon the book is closed, With “It is finished!” […]...
21. A Forsaken Garden IN a coign of the cliff between lowland and highland, At the sea-down’s edge between windward and lee, Walled round with rocks as an inland island, The ghost of a garden fronts the sea. A girdle of brushwood and thorn encloses The steep square slope of the blossomless bed Where the weeds that grew green […]...
22. The Garden in Winter Frosty-white and cold it lies Underneath the fretful skies; Snowflakes flutter where the red Banners of the poppies spread, And the drifts are wide and deep Where the lilies fell asleep. But the sunsets o’er it throw Flame-like splendor, lucent glow, And the moonshine makes it gleam Like a wonderland of dream, And the sharp […]...
23. In a Southern Garden WHEN the tall bamboos are clicking to the restless little breeze, And bats begin their jerky skimming flight, And the creamy scented blossoms of the dark pittosporum trees, Grow sweeter with the coming of the night. And the harbour in the distance lies beneath a purple pall, And nearer, at the garden’s lowest fringe, Loud […]...
24. Blight Hard seeds of hate I planted That should by now be grown,- Rough stalks, and from thick stamens A poisonous pollen blown, And odors rank, unbreathable, From dark corollas thrown! At dawn from my damp garden I shook the chilly dew; The thin boughs locked behind me That sprang to let me through; The blossoms […]...
25. The Garden 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....
26. The Olive Garden (Rainer Maria Rilke) He went up under the gray leaves All gray and lost in the olive lands And laid his forehead, gray with dust, Deep in the dustiness of his hot hands. After everything this. And this was the end. Now I must go, as I am going blind. And why is it Thy […]...
27. In The Garden One moment alone in the garden, Under the August skies; The moon had gone but the stars shone on, – Shone like your beautiful eyes. Away from the glitter and gaslight, Alone in the garden there, While the mirth of the throng, in laugh and song, Floated out on the air. You looked down through […]...
28. Fireflies in the Garden Here come real stars to fill the upper skies, And here on earth come emulating flies, That though they never equal stars in size, (And they were never really stars at heart) Achieve at times a very star-like start. Only, of course, they can’t sustain the part....
29. In an Old Town Garden Shut from the clamor of the street By an old wall with lichen grown, It holds apart from jar and fret A peace and beauty all its own. The freshness of the springtime rains And dews of morning linger here; It holds the glow of summer noons And ripest twilights of the year. Above its […]...
30. The Ballad of the Anti-Puritan They spoke of Progress spiring round, Of light and Mrs Humphrey Ward It is not true to say I frowned, Or ran about the room and roared; I might have simply sat and snored I rose politely in the club And said, ‘I feel a little bored; Will someone take me to a pub?’ The […]...
31. The Garden En robe de parade. Samain Like a skien of loose silk blown against a wall She walks by the railing of a path in Kensington Gardens, And she is dying piece-meal of a sort of emotional anaemia. And round about there is a rabble Of the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the very poor. They […]...
32. The Deserted Garden I mind me in the days departed, How often underneath the sun With childish bounds I used to run To a garden long deserted. The beds and walks were vanished quite; And wheresoe’er had struck the spade, The greenest grasses Nature laid To sanctify her right. I called the place my wilderness, For no one […]...
33. Anna Who Was Mad Anna who was mad, I have a knife in my armpit. When I stand on tiptoe I tap out messages. Am I some sort of infection? Did I make you go insane? Did I make the sounds go sour? Did I tell you to climb out the window? Forgive. Forgive. Say not I did. Say […]...
34. 1914 IV: The Dead These hearts were woven of human joys and cares, Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth. The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs, And sunset, and the colours of the earth. These had seen movement, and heard music; known Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended; Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat […]...
35. Vespers In your extended absence, you permit me Use of earth, anticipating Some return on investment. I must report Failure in my assignment, principally Regarding the tomato plants. I think I should not be encouraged to grow Tomatoes. Or, if I am, you should withhold The heavy rains, the cold nights that come So often here, […]...
36. Garden Francies I. THE FLOWER’S NAME Here’s the garden she walked across, Arm in my arm, such a short while since: Hark, now I push its wicket, the moss Hinders the hinges and makes them wince! She must have reached this shrub ere she turned, As back with that murmur the wicket swung; For she laid the […]...
37. Somewhere upon the general Earth Somewhere upon the general Earth Itself exist Today The Magic passive but extant That consecrated me Indifferent Seasons doubtless play Where I for right to be Would pay each Atom that I am But Immortality Reserving that but just to prove Another Date of Thee Oh God of Width, do not for us Curtail Eternity!...
38. Community Garden I watch the man bend over his patch, A fat gunny sack at his feet. He combs the earth with his fingers, picks up pebbles around Tiny heads of sorrel. Clouds bruise in, clog the sky, the first fat drops pock-mark the dust. The man wipes his hands on his chest, opens the sack, pulls […]...
39. The Deserted Garden I know a village in a far-off land Where from a sunny, mountain-girdled plain With tinted walls a space on either hand And fed by many an olive-darkened lane The high-road mounts, and thence a silver band Through vineyard slopes above and rolling grain, Winds off to that dim corner of the skies Where behind […]...
40. The Creation I The God separated a spirit from Himself and fashioned it into Beauty. He showered upon her all the blessings of gracefulness and kindness. He gave her the cup of happiness and said, “Drink not from this cup unless you forget the past and the future, for happiness is naught but the moment.” And He also […]...