THE LOST GARDENS OF THE HEART
AS IN A ROSE-JAR
As in a rose-jar filled with petals sweet
Blown long ago in some old garden place,
Mayhap, where you and I, a little space
Drank deep of love and knew that love was fleet—
Or leaves once gathered from a lost retreat
By one who never will again retrace
Her silent footsteps—one, whose gentle face
Was fairer than the roses at her feet;
So, deep within the vase of memory
I keep my dust of roses fresh and dear
As in the days before I knew the smart
Of time and death. Nor aught can take from me
The haunting fragrance that still lingers here—
As in a rose-jar, so within the heart!
Thomas S. Jones, Jr.
IN AN OLD GARDEN
Old phantoms haunt it of the long-ago;
Old ghosts of old-time lovers and of dreams:
Within the quiet sunlight there, meseems,
I see them walking where those lilies blow.
The hardy phlox sways to some garments' flow;
The salvia there with sudden scarlet streams,
Caught from some ribbon of some throat that gleams,
Petunia fair, in flounce and furbelow.
I seem to hear their whispers in each wind
That wanders 'mid the flowers. There they stand!
Among the shadows of that apple tree!
They are not dead, whom still it keeps in mind,
This garden, planted by some lovely hand
That keeps it fragrant with its memory.
Madison Cawein
THE GARDEN OF DREAMS
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.
Bliss Carman
HOMESICK
O my garden! lying whitely in the moonlight and the dew,
Far across the leagues of distance flies my heart to-night to you,
And I see your stately lilies in the tender radiance gleam
With a dim, mysterious splendor, like the angels of a dream!
I can see the stealthy shadows creep along the ivied wall,
And the bosky depths of verdure where the drooping vine-leaves fall,
And the tall trees standing darkly with their crowns against the sky,
While overhead the harvest moon goes slowly sailing by.
I can see the trellised arbor, and the roses' crimson glow,
And the lances of the larkspurs all glittering, row on row,
And the wilderness of hollyhocks, where brown bees seek their spoil,
And butterflies dance all day long, in glad and gay turmoil.
O, the broad paths running straightly, north and south and east and west!
O, the wild grape climbing sturdily to reach the oriole's nest!
O, the bank where wild flowers blossom, ferns nod and mosses creep
In a tangled maze of beauty over all the wooded steep!
Just beyond the moonlit garden I can see the orchard trees,
With their dark boughs overladen, stirring softly in the breeze,
And the shadows on the greensward, and within the pasture bars
The white sheep huddling quietly beneath the pallid stars.
O my garden! lying whitely in the moonlight and the dew,
Far across the restless ocean flies my yearning heart to you,
And I turn from storied castle, hoary fane, and ruined shrine,
To the dear, familiar pleasaunce where my own white lilies shine—
With a vague, half-startled wonder if some night in Paradise,
From the battlements of heaven I shall turn my longing eyes
All the dim, resplendent spaces and the mazy stardrifts through
To my garden lying whitely in the moonlight and the dew!
Julia C. R. Dorr
THE WAYS OF TIME
As butterflies are but winged flowers,
Half sorry for their change, who fain,
So still and long they live on leaves,
Would be thought flowers again.—
E'en so my thoughts, that should expand,
And grow to higher themes above,
Return like butterflies to lie
On the old things I love.
William H. Davies
A MIDSUMMER GARDEN
There is a little garden-close,
Girdled by golden apple trees,
That through the long sweet summer hours
Is haunted by the hum of bees.
The poppy tosses here its torch,
And the tall bee-balm flaunts its fire,
And regally the larkspur lifts
The slender azure of its spire.
And from the phlox and mignonette
Rich attars drift on every hand;
And when star-vestured twilight comes
The pale moths weave a saraband.
And crickets in the aisles of grass
With their clear fifing pierce the hush;
And somewhere you may hear anear
The passion of the hermit-thrush.
It is a place where dreams convene,
Dreams of the dead years gone astray,
Of love and loveliness borne back
From some forgotten yesterday.
It is a memory-hallowed spot
Where joy assumes its vernal guise,
And two walk silent side by side,
Youth's glory shining in their eyes.
Clinton Scollard
THE WHITE ROSE
This is the spirit flower,
The ghost of an old regret;
All night she stands in the garden-close,
And her face with tears is wet.
But I love the pale white rose,
For she always seems to me
A pallid nun who dreams all day
Of a distant memory.
Alas! how well I know
That every garden spot
Is haunted by a gentle ghost
Who will not be forgot.
In the garden of the heart,
Ere the sun of life is set,
O many a wild rose blooms and dreams
Of many an old regret!
Charles Hanson Towne
A HAUNTED GARDEN
Between the moss and stone
The lonely lilies rise;
Wasted and overgrown
The tangled garden lies.
Weeds climb about the stoop
And clutch the crumbling walls;
The drowsy grasses droop—
The night wind falls.
The place is like a wood;
No sign is there to tell
Where rose and iris stood
That once she loved so well.
Where phlox and asters grew,
A leafless thornbush stands,
And shrubs that never knew
Her tender hands....
Over the broken fence
The moonbeams trail their shrouds;
Their tattered cerements
Cling to the gauzy clouds,
In ribbons frayed and thin—
And startled by the light,
Silence shrinks deeper in
The depths of night.
Useless lie spades and rakes;
Rust's on the garden-tools.
Yet, where the moonlight makes
Nebulous silver pools,
A ghostly shape is cast—
Something unseen has stirred ...
Was it a breeze that passed?
Was it a bird?
Dead roses lift their heads
Out of a grassy tomb;
From ruined pansy-beds
A thousand pansies bloom.
The gate is opened wide—
The garden that has been,
Now blossoms like a bride ...
Who entered in?
Louis Untermeyer
THE DUSTY HOUR-GLASS
It had been a trim garden,
With parterres of fringed pinks and gillyflowers,
and smooth-raked walks.
Silks and satins had brushed the box edges
of its alleys.
The curved stone lips of its fishponds
had held the rippled reflections of tricorns and
powdered periwigs.
The branches of its trees had glittered with lanterns,
and swayed to the music of flutes and violins.
Now, the fishponds are green with scum;
And paths and flower-beds
are run together and overgrown.
Only at one end is an octagonal Summerhouse
not yet in ruins.
Through the lozenged panes of its windows,
you can see the interior:
A dusty bench; a fireplace,
with a lacing of letters carved in the stone above it;
A broken ball of worsted
rolled away into a corner.
Dolci, dolci, i giorni passati!
Amy Lowell
THE SONG OF WANDERING AENGUS
I went out to the hazel wood
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream,
And caught a little silver trout.
When I had laid it on the floor,
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl,
With apple-blossom in her hair,
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.
Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.
W. B. Yeats
THE THREE CHERRY TREES
There were three cherry trees once,
Grew in a garden all shady;
And there for delight of so gladsome a sight,
Walked a most beautiful lady,
Dreamed a most beautiful lady.
Birds in those branches did sing,
Blackbird and throstle and linnet,
But she walking there was by far the most fair—
Lovelier than all else within it,
Blackbird and throstle and linnet.
But blossoms to berries do come,
All hanging on stalks light and slender,
And one long summer's day charmed that lady away,
With vows sweet and merry and tender;
A lover with voice low and tender.
Moss and lichen the green branches deck;
Weeds nod in its paths green and shady;
Yet a light footstep seems there to wander in dreams,
The ghost of that beautiful lady,
That happy and beautiful lady.
Walter de la Mare
OLD GARDENS
The white rose tree that spent its musk
For lovers' sweeter praise,
The stately walks we sought at dusk,
Have missed thee many days.
Again, with once-familiar feet,
I tread the old parterre—
But, ah, its bloom is now less sweet
Than when thy face was there.
I hear the birds of evening call;
I take the wild perfume;
I pluck a rose—to let it fall
And perish in the gloom.
Arthur Upson
THE BLOOMING OF THE ROSE
What is it like, to be a rose?
Old Roses, softly, "Try and see."
Nay, I will tarry. Let me be
In my green peacefulness and smile.
I will stay here and dream awhile.
'Tis well for little buds to dream,
Dream—dream—who knows—
Say, is it good to be a rose?
Old roses, tell me! Is it good?
Old Roses, very softly, "Good."
I am afraid to be a rose!
This little sphere wherein I wait,
Curled up and small and delicate,
Lets in a twilight of pure green,
Wherein are dreams of night and morn
And the sweet stillness of a world
Where all things are that are unborn.
Old Roses, "Better to be born."
I cannot be a bud for long.
My sheath is like a heart full blown,
And I, the silence of a song
Withdrawn into that heart alone,
Well knowing that it shall be sung.
Outside the great world comes and goes—
I think I doubt, to be a rose—
Old Roses, "Doubt? To be a Rose!"
Anna Hempstead Branch
THE GARDEN OF MNEMOSYNE
There are no roses in the garden now,
The summer birds have vanished oversea,
The ashen keys hang rusty on the bough,
Autumn's gold ensigns flame from tree to tree.
Music and perfume sleep, and light is fled,
Autumn's fine gold is faery gold, we know.
Where shall we turn for joy when flowers are dead,
When birds are silent, and the cold winds blow?
The summer birds have vanished oversea,
But Memory's palace-courts are full of song;
There sings a nightingale for you and me,
And there a hidden lute plays all day long.
There are no roses in the garden now,
But Memory's garden grows each day more fair;
Sun, moon, and stars her orchard close endow,
And there bloom roses—roses everywhere.
Rosamund Marriott Watson
BALLADE OF THE DREAMLAND ROSE
Where the waves of burning cloud are rolled
On the further shore of the sunset sea,
In a land of wonder that none behold,
There blooms a rose on the Dreamland Tree
That stands in the Garden of Mystery
Where the River of Slumber softly flows;
And whenever a dream has come to be,
A petal falls from the Dreamland Rose.
In the heart of the tree, on a branch of gold,
A silvern bird sings endlessly
A mystic song that is ages old,
A mournful song in a minor key,
Full of the glamour of faery;
And whenever a dreamer's ears unclose
To the sound of that distant melody,
A petal falls from the Dreamland Rose.
Dreams and visions in hosts untold
Throng around on the moonlit lea:
Dreams of age that are calm and cold,
Dreams of youth that are fair and free—
Dark with a lone heart's agony,
Bright with a hope that no one knows—
And whenever a dream and a dream agree,
A petal falls from the Dreamland Rose.
ENVOI
Princess, you gaze in a reverie
Where the drowsy firelight redly glows;
Slowly you raise your eyes to me ...
A petal falls from the Dreamland Rose.
Brian Hooker
THE FLOWERS OF JUNE
These flowers of June
The gates of memory unbar;
These flowers of June
Such old-time harmonies retune,
I fain would keep the gates ajar,
So full of sweet enchantment are
These flowers of June.
Was it the bloom of the laurel sprays,
That wakened remembrance of singing birds?
Or, was it the charm of remembered words,
That set my heart singing through somber days?
I longed for the summer-time, flower and tree;
And lo! the summer-time came with thee.
The bloom is no more, but the charm still stays.
James Terry White
IN MEMORY'S GARDEN
There is a garden in the twilight lands
Of Memory, where troops of butterflies
Flutter adown the cypress paths, and bands
Of flowers mysterious droop their drowsy eyes.
There through the silken hush come footfalls faint
And hurried through the vague parterres, and sighs
Whispering of rapture or of sweet complaint
Like ceaseless parle of bees and butterflies.
And by one lonely pathway steal I soon
To find the flowerings of the old delight
Our hearts together knew—when lo, the moon
Turns all the cypress alleys into white.
Thomas Walsh
SERENADE
Dark is the iris meadow,
Dark is the ivory tower,
And lightly the young moth's shadow
Sleeps on the passion-flower.
Gone are our day's red roses.
So lovely and lost and few,
But the first star uncloses
A silver bud in the blue.
Night, and a flame in the embers
Where the seal of the years was set,—
When the almond-bough remembers
How shall my heart forget?
Marjorie L. C. Pickthall
"WHAT HEART BUT FEARS A FRAGRANCE?"
What heart but fears a fragrance?
Alien they
Who breathe in the white lilac only May;
For there be other spirits unto whom
Fate's kiss lies dreaming in each stray perfume!
Who mock at ghosts of odour—poor they be!
Bereft the scented balms of memory,
For unto one in April's rain-blest earth
There starts for aye the sharp, glad cry of birth;
And Love will find in rooms unbarred for years
Familiar sweetness loosing sudden tears,
Clasping the will in mastering embrace
As in the presence of a phantom grace.
Then there be odours pungent—fires in Fall
The gipsying of boyhood to recall;
And there be perfumes holy—nay, but one
Whose pang is like none other 'neath the sun
To drown the sinking senses in a joy
Beyond all time to weaken or destroy!
Odours there be that swoon, entreat, caress—
Elusive thrall, to doom or stab or bless;
Each vagrant scent that holds the breath in fee
Doth wed the heart in Life's eternity.
Who fear no wraiths of fragrance—sorry they;
Who breathe in lilac odours only May;
For there be other mortals unto whom
White magic wanders in each stray perfume.
Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi
YEARS AFTERWARD
It is not sight or sound
That, when a heart forgets,
Most makes it to remember:
It's some old poignant scent re-found—
Like breath of April violets,
Or apples of September.
It isn't song or scene
That stirs the tears again:
It's brush smoke from the hills at night,
Spicy and sweet; or that wet, keen,
Long lost aroma of delight,
Fresh ploughed fields after rain.
Nancy Byrd Turner
AUTUMNAL
Across the scented garden of my dreams
Where roses grew, Time passes like a thief,
Among my trees his silver sickle gleams,
The grass is stained with many a ruddy leaf;
And on cold winds the petals float away
That were the pride of June and her array.
The bare boughs weave a net upon the sky
To catch Love's wings and his fair body bruise;
There are no flowers in the rosary—
No song-birds in the mournful avenues;
Though on the sodden air not lightly breaks
The elegy of Youth, whom love forsakes.
Ah, Time! one flower of all my garden spare,
One rose of all the roses, that in this
I may possess my love's perfumed hair
And all the crimson secrets of her kiss.
Grant me one rose that I may drink its wine,
And from her lips win the last anodyne.
For I have learnt too many things to live,
And I have loved too many things to die;
But all my barren acres I would give
For one red blossom of eternity,
To animate the darkness and delight
The spaces and the silences of night.
But dreams are tender flowers that in their birth
Are very near to death, and I shall reap,
Who planted wonder, unavailing earth,
Harsh thorns and miserable husks of sleep.
I have had dreams, but have not conquered Time,
And love shall vanish like an empty rhyme.
Richard Middleton
"OH, TELL ME HOW MY GARDEN GROWS"
Oh, tell me how my garden grows,
Now I no more may labor there;
Do still the lily and the rose
Bloom on without my fostering care?
Do peonies blush as deep with pride,
The larkspurs burn as bright a blue,
And velvet pansies stare as wide
I wonder, as they used to do?
The tender things that would not blow
Unless I coaxed them, do they raise
Their petals in a sturdy row,
Forgetful, to the stranger's gaze?
Or do they show a paler shade,
And sigh a little in the wind
For one whose sheltering presence made
Their step-dame Nature less unkind?
Oh, tell me how my garden grows,
Where I no more may take delight,
And if some dream of me it knows,
Who dream of it by day and night.
Mildred Howells
HER GARDEN
This was her dearest walk last year. Her hands
Set all the tiny plants, and tenderly
Pressed firm the unfamiliar soil; and she
It was who watered them at evening time.
She loved them; and I too, because of her.
And now another June has come, while I
Am walking in the shadow, sad, alone.
Yet when I reach the rose-path that was hers,
And breathe the fragrancy of bud and bloom,
She stands beside; the murmur of the leaves,
The well-remembered rustle of her gown,
And low her whisper comes, "My dear! My dear!"
This is her garden. Only she and I—
But always we—may walk its hallowed ways;
And all the thoughts she planted in my heart,
Sunned with her smile, and chastened with her tears,
Again have blossomed—love's perennials.
Eldredge Denison
THE LITTLE GHOST
I knew her for a little ghost
That in my garden walked,—
The wall is high—higher than most—
And the green gate was locked;
And yet I did not think of that
Till after she was gone;
I knew her by the broad white hat,
All ruffled, she had on,
By the dear ruffles round her feet,
By her small hands, that hung
In their lace mitts, austere and sweet,
Her gown's white folds among.
I watched to see if she would stay,
What she would do,—and, oh,
She looked as if she liked the way
I let my garden grow!
She bent above my favorite mint
With conscious garden grace,
She smiled and smiled,—there was no hint
Of sadness in her face;
She held her gown on either side,
To let her slippers show,
And up the walk she went with pride,
The way great ladies go;
And where the wall is built in new,
And is of ivy bare,
She paused,—then opened and passed through
A gate that once was there.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
ROSES IN THE SUBWAY
A wan-cheeked girl with faded eyes
Came stumbling down the crowded car,
Clutching her burden to her breast
As though she held a star.
Roses, I swear it! Red and sweet
And struggling from her pinched white hands,
Roses ... like captured hostages
From far and fairy lands!
The thunder of the rushing train
Was like a hush.... The flower scent
Breathed faintly on the stale, whirled air
Like some dim sacrament—
I saw a garden stretching out
And morning on it like a crown—
And o'er a bed of crimson bloom
My mother ... stooping down.
Dana Burnet