He has been ill so long
On whom it depended,
That the garden untended
Is beginning to go wrong.
The gate has fallen awry,
The tools are half rusted--
They will be encrusted
All over, by and by.
The rose has broken loose
From the arch where he trained it;
Dead petal on petal has stained it
With its own juice.
Walks and plots are unkempt--
It is all dishevelled;
Like a skein unravelled,
Like a forgotten thing dream’d.
And peering through the gate,
And closing in around it,
The thickets that bound it
Seem to be lying in wait.
My heart foretells the day
Toward which it moulders,
When men with bowed shoulders
Shall carry him away.
Herb-border and flower-bed
Underfoot they shall trample,
And briar and bramble
Make slower their slow tread.
The mourners as they pass
Will stumble and shuffle,
Their steps shall be muffled
With the swishing of long grass.
Departed the last black form
And the last black shadow,
From thicket and meadow
Shall clamber in a swarm
Of wildings and weeds out-cast,
By exile eagered
For the garden beleaguered
Which has fallen to them at last.
By these remorseless, dumb
Spoilers invaded,
The flowers unaided
Shall all be overcome;
Save only those at need’s
Touch who turn traitors,
Changing their natures
And reverting again to weeds.
Thus shall wild earth be paid
The debt so long owing;
Whilst he, unknowing,
Deep in wild earth is laid.