So out of the garden greenery
Heavy with jasmine scent
And past the slumbering gentle beasts
I would go forth content.
I’d think of naught save the wall, but gain
Over the other side
A fair mixed world of evil and good,
Chancy and wild and wide.
Sorrow and hunger and pain and fear,
Peace that is won through strife,
The changing luck of the changing year
Giving its zest to life.
Had I been Adam in Eden-close
Never was wall so high
’Could keep me out of the lean brown earth,
Though it might reach the sky!
Had I been Adam in Paradise
I should ha’ climbed the wall,
I want not only the sweet of life
But all—all—all!
SEPTEMBER
The morns are growing misty, the nights are turning cold,
The linden leaves are falling like a shower of gold;
And over where my heart is, beneath the southern sun,
The shearing’s nearly over and the spring’s begun.
The crying flocks are driven to feed in peace again,
They stream and spread and scatter on the smooth green plain,
And in the sky above them the soft spring breezes keep
A flock of clouds as snowy as the new-shorn sheep.
Now later comes the sunshine and sooner comes the dark,
The barefoot newsboys shiver, the ladies in the Park
Wear furs about their shoulders, for autumn winds are keen,
And rusty curling edges fleck the chestnuts’ green.
The mists hang gauzy curtains of pearl and pigeon-blue
Between us and the distance, the street-lamps shining through
Wear each a golden halo diaphanous and fair—
But not one whit more lovely than my own clear air.