EDEN-HUNGER
O that a nest, my mate! were once more ours,
Where we, by vain and barren change untutored,
Could have grave friendships with wise trees and flowers,
And live the great, green life of field and orchard!
From the cold birthday of the daffodils,
E'en to that listening pause that is November,
O to confide in woods, confer with hills,
And then—then, to that palmland you remember,
Fly swift, where seas that brook not Winter's rule
Are one vast violet breaking into lilies;
There where we spent our first strange wedded Yule,
In the far, golden, fire-hearted Antilles.
William Watson
THE GARDEN AT BEMERTON
FOR A FLYLEAF OF HERBERT'S POEMS
Year after year, from dusk to dusk,
How sweet this English garden grows,
Steeped in two centuries' sun and musk,
Walled from the world in gray repose,
Harbor of honey-freighted bees,
And wealthy with the rose.
Here pinks with spices in their throats
Nod by the bitter marigold;
Here nightingales with haunting notes,
When west and east with stars are bold,
From out the twisted hawthorn-trees,
Sing back the weathers old.
All tuneful winds do down it pass;
The leaves a sudden whiteness show,
And delicate noises fill the grass;
The only flakes its spaces know
Are petals blown off briers long,
And heaped on blades below.