Edward J. O'Brien
"WITHIN THE GARDEN THERE IS HEALTHFULNESS"
Within the garden there is healthfulness.
Lavishly it gives it us
In light that cleaves
To every movement of its thousand hands
Of palms and leaves.
And the good shade where it accepts,
After long journeyings,
Our steps,
Pours on the weary limb
A force of life and sweetness like
Its mosses dim.
When the lake is playing with the wind and sun.
It seems a crimson heart
Within, all ardent, has begun
To throb with the moving wave;
The gladiolus and the fervent rose,
Which in their splendor move unshadowèd,
Upon their vital stems expose
Their cups of gold and red.
Within the garden there is healthfulness.
Emile Verhaeren
IN A GARDEN
I stood within a Garden during rain
Uncovering to the drops my lifted brow:
O joyous fancy, to imagine now
I slip, with trees and clouds, the social chain,
Alone with nature, naught to lose or gain
Nor even to become; no, just to be
A moment's personal essence, wholly free
From needs that mold the heart to forms of pain.
Arise, I cried, and celebrate the hour!
Acclaim serener gladness; if it fail,
New courage, nobler vision, will survive
That I have known my kinship to the flower,
My brotherhood with rain, and in this vale
Have been a moment's friend to all alive.