A FLOWER GARDEN,
At Coleorton Hall, Leicestershire[389]
Composed 1824.—Published 1827
[Planned by my friend, Lady Beaumont, in connection with the garden at Coleorton.—I. F.]
One of the "Poems of the Fancy."—Ed.
Tell me, ye Zephyrs! that unfold,
While fluttering o'er this gay Recess,[390]
Pinions that fanned the teeming mould
Of Eden's blissful wilderness,
Did only softly-stealing hours 5
There close the peaceful lives of flowers?
Say, when the moving creatures saw
All kinds commingled without fear,
Prevailed a like indulgent law
For the still growths that prosper here? 10
Did wanton fawn and kid forbear
The half-blown rose, the lily spare?
Or peeped they often from their beds
And prematurely disappeared,
Devoured like pleasure ere it spreads 15
A bosom to the sun endeared?
If such their harsh untimely doom,
It falls not here on bud or bloom.
All summer-long the happy Eve
Of this fair Spot her flowers may bind, 20
Nor e'er, with ruffled fancy, grieve,
From the next glance she casts, to find
That love for little things by Fate
Is rendered vain as love for great.
Yet, where the guardian fence is wound, 25
So subtly are our eyes beguiled
We see not nor suspect a bound,[391]
No more than in some forest wild;
The sight is free as air—or crost[392]
Only by art in nature lost. 30
And, though[393] the jealous turf refuse
By random footsteps to be prest,
And feed[394] on never-sullied dews,
Ye, gentle breezes from the west,
With all the ministers of hope 35
Are tempted to this sunny slope!