Thou knowest, Allah, and didst give us bread--
And remembering of our souls didst give us food of flowers--
Thy name be hallowed._
THOMAS WALSH
IN THE GARDEN-CLOSE AT MEZRA
In the garden-close at Mezra,
When the cactus was in flower,
We sat apart together
Through the languid noonday hour.
I was her Arab lover,
(Of course it was all in play!)
And I called her "Star-of-Twilight,"
And I called her "Dream-of-Day."
She--has she quite forgotten?
Soothly, I do not know
If ever she tenderly opens
The volume of Long Ago.
But I--I can still remember
Her lips like the cactus flower
In the garden-close at Mezra
At the languid noonday hour!
CLINTON SCOLLARD
THE CACTUS
The scarlet flower, with never a sister-leaf,
Stemless, springs from the edge of the Cactus-thorn:
Thus from the rugged wounds of desperate grief
A beautiful Thought, perfect and pure, is born.
LAURENCE HOPE
THE WHITE PEACOCK
Here where the sunlight
Floodeth the garden,
Where the pomegranate
Reareth its glory
Of gorgeous blossom;
Where the oleanders
Dream through the noontides;
And, like surf o' the sea
Round cliffs of basalt,
The thick magnolias
In billowy masses
Front the sombre green of the ilexes:
Here where the heat lies
Pale blue in the hollows,
Where blue are the shadows
On the fronds of the cactus,
Where pale blue the gleaming
Of fir and cypress,
With the cones upon them
Amber or glowing with virgin gold:
Here where the honey-flower
Makes the heat fragrant,
As though from the gardens
Of Gulistan,
Where the bulbul singeth
Through a mist of roses
A breath were borne:
Here where the dream-flowers,
The cream-white poppies
Silently waver,
And where the Scirocco,
Faint in the hollows,
Foldeth his soft white wings in the sunlight,
And lieth sleeping
Deep in the heart of
A sea of white violets:
Here, as the breath, as the soul of this beauty,
Moveth in silence, and dreamlike, and slowly,
White as a snow-drift in mountain-valleys
When softly upon it the gold light lingers:
White as the foam o' the sea that is driven
O'er billows of azure agleam with sun-yellow:
Cream-white and soft as the breasts of a girl,
Moves the White Peacock, as though through the noontide
A dream of the moonlight were real for a moment.
Dim on the beautiful fan that he spreadeth,
Foldeth and spreadeth abroad in the sunlight,
Dim on the cream-white are blue adumbrations,
Shadows so pale in their delicate blueness
That visions they seem as of vanishing violets,
The fragrant white violets veined with azure,
Pale, pale as the breath of blue smoke in far woodlands.
Here, as the breath, as the soul of this beauty,
White as the cloud through the heats of the noontide
Moves the White Peacock.
WILLIAM SHARP
AT ISOLA BELLA
Once at Isola Bella,
With sunset in the sky,
We stood on the topmost terrace--
You and I.
Around us Lago Maggiore,
Incomparably fair,
Gave back the hues of heaven
To the Italian air.
Then up the marble terrace
Below the cypress trees
Came a flock of milk-white peacocks
With fans spread to the breeze.
Rose-pink on each outspread feather,
Rose-pink upon the crest,--
Never were birds in plumage
So ravishingly drest!
Wherever we walked they followed,
Stately at our feet,
No picture so enchanting
Will any hour repeat.
And here in the murky city
Those milk-white peacocks seem
To follow and follow me ever
Like ghosts of a haunting dream.
JESSIE B. RITTENHOUSE
THE FOUNTAIN
All through the deep blue night
The fountain sang alone;
It sang to the drowsy heart
Of the satyr carved in stone.
The fountain sang and sang
But the satyr never stirred--
Only the great white moon
In the empty heaven heard.
The fountain sang and sang
While on the marble rim
The milk-white peacocks slept,
And their dreams were strange and dim.
Bright dew was on the grass,
And on the ilex, dew,
The dreamy milk-white birds
Were all a-glisten, too.
The fountain sang and sang
The things one cannot tell;
The dreaming peacocks stirred
And the gleaming dew-drops fell.
SARA TEASDALE
THE CHAMPA FLOWER
Supposing I became a champa flower, just for fun, and grew on a branch
high up that tree, and shook in the wind with laughter and danced upon
the newly budded leaves, would you know me, mother?
You would call, "Baby, where are you?" and I should laugh to myself and
keep quite quiet.
I should slyly open my petals and watch you at your work.
When after your bath, with wet hair spread on your shoulders, you walked
through the shadow of the champa tree to the little court where you say
your prayers, you would notice the scent of the flower, but not know
that it came from me.
When after the midday meal you sat at the window reading _Ramayana_, and
the tree's shadow fell over your hair and your lap, I should fling my
wee little shadow on to the page of your book, just where you were
reading.
But would you guess that it was the tiny shadow of your little child?
When in the evening you went to the cow-shed with the lighted lamp in
your hand, I should suddenly drop on to the earth again and be your own
baby once more, and beg you to tell me a story.
"Where have you been, you naughty child?"
"I won't tell you, mother." That's what you and I would say then.
RABINDRANATH TAGORE
IN AN EGYPTIAN GARDEN
Can it be winter otherwhere?
Forsooth, it seems not so!
The moonlight on the garden square
Must be the only snow,
For all about me, fragrant fair,
The blooms of summer blow.
Wine-lipped and beautiful and bland,
The rose displays its dower;
The heavy-scented citron and
The stainless lily-tower;
And whiter than a houri's hand,
El Ful, the Arab flower.
In purple silhouette a palm
Lifts from a vine-wreathed plinth
Against a sky whose cloudless calm
Is hued like hyacinth;
And echoes with a bulbul's psalm
The jasmine labyrinth.
In life's tumultuous ocean swell
Here is a charmed isle;
I hear a late muezzin tell
His holy tale the while,
And like the faint notes of a bell
The boat-songs of old Nile.
Across my spirit thrills no theme
That is not marvel-bright;
I see within the lotus gleam
The nectar of delight,
And, tasting it, I drift and dream
Adown the glamoured night!
CLINTON SCOLLARD
EVENING IN OLD JAPAN
Peaceful and mellow looks the sky to-night
As some great Buddha made of ivory,
Upon whose brow is set a moonstone white,
The shining emblem of its purity.
A dim blue haze like incense, rising high,
Merges together mountain, tree, and stream;
But over all still broods an ivory sky
Cloudless as Buddha's face, one gem agleam.
ANTOINETTE DE COURSEY PATTERSON
REFLECTIONS
When I looked into your eyes,
I saw a garden
With peonies, and tinkling pagodas,
And round-arched bridges
Over still lakes.
A woman sat beside the water
In a rain-blue, silken garment.
She reached through the water
To pluck the crimson peonies
Beneath the surface.
But as she grasped the stems,
They jarred and broke into white-green ripples.
And as she drew out her hand,
The water drops dripping from it
Stained her rain-blue dress like tears.
AMY LOWELL
IN THE GARDEN
Do you remember, Sister,
The golden afternoon
When we looked upon the lotus
And listened to the croon
Of the doves that sat together
Among the flowers of June?
And deep among the valleys
A far, sweet sound was heard--
Some fluter in the forest
That like a magic bird
Sang of the unseen heavens
And mystic Way and Word.
PAI TA-SHUN
THE DESERTED GARDEN
I hear no more the swish of silks
Along the marble walks;
The autumn wind blows sharp and cold
Among the flowerless stalks.
In place of petals of the peach
Fast drifts the yellow leaf;
And looking in the lotus-pond
I see one face of grief.
PAI TA-SHUN
A ROMAN GARDEN
All night above that garden the rose-flushed moon will sail,
Making the darkness deeper where hides the nightingale.
Below the Sabine mountain
The tossed and slender fountain
Will curve, a lily pale;
And where the plumed pine soars tallest,
'Tis there, O nightingale, thou callest;
Where the loud water leaps the highest.
'Tis there, O nightingale, thou criest;
In the dripping luscious dark,
Hark, oh, hark!
Wonderful, delirious,
Soul of joy mysterious.
A garden full of fragrances,
Of pauses and of cadences,
Whence come they all?
Of cypresses and ilex-trees,
Plumes and dark candles like to these
Were long ago Persephone's.
All night within that garden
The glimmering gods of stone,
The satyrs and the naiads
Will laugh to be alone,
In starless courts of shadows
By silence overgrown,
Save for the nightingale's
Wild lyric thither blown.
By pools and dusky closes
Dim shapes will move about,
Twirled wands and masks and faces,
Dancers and wreaths of roses,
The moonlight's trick, no doubt.
A naked nymph upon the stair,
A sculptured vine that clasps the air,--
And then one Bacchic bird somewhere
Will pour his passion out.
All night above that garden the rose-flushed moon will sail,
Making the darkness deeper where hides the nightingale.
Down yonder velvet alley,
Floats Daphne like a feather,
A finger bidding silence,
The dark and she together.
Look, where the secret fount is misting.
Apollo, thou shalt have thy trysting:
For where a ruined sphinx lay smiling
The wood-girl waits thee, white, beguiling.
All night above that garden the rose-flushed moon will sail,
Making the darkness deeper where hides the nightingale.
FLORENCE WILKINSON EVANS
COMO IN APRIL
The wind is Winter, though the sun be Spring:
The icy rills have scarce begun to flow;
The birds unconfidently fly and sing.
As on the land once fell the northern foe,
The hostile mountains from the passes fling
Their vandal blasts upon the lake below.
Not yet the round clouds of the Maytime cling
Above the world's blue wonder's curving show,
And tempt to linger with their lingering.
Yet doth each slope a vernal promise know:
See, mounting yonder, white as angel's wing.
A snow of bloom to meet the bloom of snow.
* * * * *
Love, need we more than our imagining
To make the whole year May? What though
The wind be Winter if the heart be Spring?
ROBERT UNDERWOOD JOHNSON
AN EXILE'S GARDEN
I live in the heart of a garden
With cypresses all about;
To the east and west, and the south and north,
Straight shadowy paths run out.
There are ancient gods in my garden;
They have faces young and pale;
And a hundred thousand roses here
Enrapture the nightingale.
Yet, among the gods of the garden,
The roses and gods, I think,
Daylong, of a far-off clover field,
And the song of a bob-o-link.
SOPHIE JEWETT
THE CLOISTER GARDEN AT CERTOSA
It is a place monastic, set above
The city's pride and pleasuring below;
The benediction of the sky breathes love
Over the olive trees and vines a-row.
The old gray walls are delicate to prayer
And silence; in the corridors dim-lit
Lurks many a painting, many a fresco rare
Done by some brother for the joy of it.
Pale lavender and red pomegranate trees,
Roses and poppies spilling garden sweets;
And tall lush grass and grain, and, circling these,
The cool of cloistral walks and shadowed seats.
By a sun-dial in the center, rests
One brown-robed Father; and his lips recite
Some holy word; little he heeds the jests
Of those who make the world their chief delight.
While Florence, far below, from dreamy towers
Throws back the sun and tolls the tranquil hours.
RICHARD BURTON
A GARDEN IN VENICE
There is a garden in a vineyard set
Beneath the spell of Adriatic skies;
A lovely place of dreams and ecstasies,
Of color tangled in a verdant net,
The shimmer of the low lagoon whose fret
Washes the garden's length, and rose that vies
With rose, pomegranate and tall flowers that rise
Above their fellows in one glory met.
And there I think in the still summer night,
When all the world is sleeping save the moon
And the blest nightingale who shuns the noon,
The closed flowers open out of sheer delight
And the white lilies bow their slender stalks,
For thro' them, 'neath the vines Madonna walks.
DOROTHY FRANCES GURNEY
IN A GARDEN OF GRANADA
The city rumour rises all the day
Across the potted plants along the wall;
The sun and winds upon the slopes hold sway,
Tossing the dust and shadows in a squall.
The sun is old and weary--weary here
Upon the ageing roofs and miradors,
The broken terraces and basins drear
Where each old bell its ancient echoes pours.
Ringing--what memories to ring--to those
That linger here--the lizard and the cat,
That haunt these solitudes in state morose
Through the long day their silent habitat.
Untroubled,--save when in the moonlight steals
Some voice in song across the lower wall,
And sudden magic each old rafter feels,
The while the echoes round it rise and fall.
For as the wail of love or sorrow rings
Along the night soft steps are on the stair
And pathway; in the broken window wings
Are stirring, and white arms are lolling there.
And that old rose tree lifts its head anew,
And there is perfume o'er the hills afar,
From where Alhambra's crescent cleaves the blue
To where agleam Genil and Darro are.
O Voice!--what is thy necromantic word
That all Granada waits adown the years?
Is it the sound some love-swept night has heard?--
The cry of love amid the cry of tears?--
THOMAS WALSH
AMIEL'S GARDEN
His Garden! His bright candelabra trees
En fete. His lilacs steeped in joy! His sky
Limpid and blue! The same flecked shadows lie
Athwart this path he paced. His reveries
Float in the air. His moods, his ecstasies
Still linger charmed. Pale butterflies flit by--
Were one his soul it had not found on high
Banquet more choice than those infinities
He daily knew. And now no one to hear
The hovering hours, the singing grass, to feel
The wrinkles of the soul smooth out, to see
God's shadow bend down from eternity--
His garden empty! Yet I gently steal
Lest I disturb his dreams still smiling near.
GERTRUDE HUNTINGTON MCGIFFERT
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.
Ah! dawn and dusk, year after year,
'Tis more than these that keeps it rare!
We see the saintly Master here,
Pacing along the alleys fair,
And catch the throbbing of a song
Across the amber air!
LIZETTE WOODWORTH REESE
IN AN OXFORD GARDEN
As one whose road winds upward turns his face
Unto the valleys where he late hath stood,
Leaning upon his staff in peace to brood
On many a beauty of the distant place,
So I in this cool garden pause a space,
Reviewing many things in many a mood,
Accumulating friends in solitude
From the assembly of my thoughts and days.
ARTHUR UPSON
THE HOMELY GARDEN
"GRANDMOTHER'S GATHERING BONESET"
_Grandmother's gathering boneset to-day;
In the garret she'll dry and hang it away.
Next winter I'll "need" some boneset tea--
I wish she wouldn't think always of me!_
EDITH M. THOMAS
A BREATH OF MINT
What small leaf-fingers veined with emerald light
Lay on my heart that touch of elfin might?
What spirals of sharp perfume do they fling,
To blur my page with swift remembering?
Borne in a country basket marketward,
Their message is a music spirit-heard,
A pebble-hindered lilt and gurgle and run
Of tawny singing water in the sun.
Their coolness brings that ecstasy I knew
Down by the mint-fringed brook that wandered through
My mellow meadows set with linden-trees
Loud with the summer jargon of the bees.
Their magic has its way with me until
I see the storm's dark wing shadow the hill
As once I saw: and draw sharp breath again,
To feel their arrowy fragrance pierce the rain.
O sudden urging sweetness in the air,
Exhaled, diffused about me everywhere,
Yours is the subtlest word the summer saith,
And vanished summers sigh upon your breath.
GRACE HAZARD CONKLING
A SELLER OF HERBS
Black, comely, of abiding cheer,
Three times a week she fares,
Townward from gabled Windermere,
To sell her dainty wares.
Green balms she brings from winding lanes,
And some in handfuls tall,
Of the old days of Annes and Janes,
Grown by a kitchen wall.
Keen mint has she in dewy sprigs,
With spears of violet;
And the spiced bloom of elder-twigs
In a field's hollow set.
My snatch of May I get from her,
In white buds off a tree;
June in one whiff of lavender,
That breaks my heart for me.
The swaying boughs of Windermere,
Each gust that takes the grass,
High over the town roar I hear,
When that old stall I pass.
What homely memories are mine,
At sight of her quaint stalks;
Of grave dusks mellowing like wine
Down long, box-bordered walks;
Of garret windows eastward thrust,
Of rafters shining dim,
And heaped with herbs as gray as dust
All scented to the brim.
This lady of the market-place,
Three times a week and more,
I pray her seasons thick with grace;
And ever at her door,
Shut from the road by wall of stone,
And ample cherry trees,
A garden fair as Herrick's own,
And just as full of bees!
LIZETTE WOODWORTH REESE
LAVENDER
Gray walls that lichen stains,
That take the sun and the rains,
Old, stately, and wise:
Clipt yews, old lawns flag-bordered,
In ancient ways yet ordered;
South walks where the loud bee plies
Daylong till Summer flies--
Here grows Lavender, here breathes England.
Gay cottage gardens, glad,
Comely, unkempt, and mad,
Jumbled, jolly, and quaint;
Nooks where some old man dozes;
Currants and beans and roses
Mingling without restraint;
A wicket that long lacks paint--
Here grows Lavender, here breathes England.
Sprawling for elbow-room,
Spearing straight spikes of bloom,
Clean, wayward, and tough;
Sweet and tall and slender,
True, enduring, and tender,
Buoyant and bold and bluff,
Simplest, sanest of stuff--
Thus grows Lavender, thence breathes England.
W. W. BLAIR FISH
DAWN IN MY GARDEN
I went into my garden at break of Delight,
Before Joy had risen in the Eastern sky,
To see how many cucumbers had happened over night,
And how much higher stood the corn that yesterday was high.
I went into my garden when Rest had fallen away
From the tops of blue hills, from the valleys gold and green,
To see how far the beans had travelled up into the day,
And whether all my lettuces were glad and cool and clean.
I went into my garden when Mirth was laughing low
Through the sharp-scented leaves of the lush tomato vines,
Through the long blue-grey leaves of the turnips in a row,
Where early in the every day the dew shakes and shines.
Oh, Rest had slipped away from the valleys green and gold,
From the tops of blue hills that were silent all the night,
But the big, round Joy was rising, busy and bold,
When I went into my garden at break of Delight!
MARGUERITE WILKINSON
THE PROUD VEGETABLES
In a funny little garden not much bigger than a mat,
There lived a thriving family, its members all were fat;
But some were short, and some were tall, and some were almost round,
And some ran high on bamboo poles, and some lay on the ground.
Of these old Father Pumpkin was, perhaps, the proudest one.
He claimed to trace his family vine directly from the sun.
"We both are round and yellow, we both are bright," said he,
"A stronger family likeness one could scarcely wish to see."
Old Mrs. Squash hung on the fence; she had a crooked neck,
Perhaps 'twas hanging made it so,--her nerves were quite a wreck.
Near by, upon a planted row of faggots, dry and lean,
The young cucumbers climbed to swing their Indian clubs of green.
A big white _daikon_ hid in earth beneath his leafy crest;
And mole-like sweet potatoes crept around his quiet nest.
Above were growing pearly pease, and beans of many kinds
With pods like tiny castanets to mock the summer winds.
There, in a spot that feels the sun, the swarthy egg-plant weaves
Great webs of frosted tapestry and hangs them out for leaves.
Its funny azure blossoms give a merry, shrivelled wink,
And lifting up the leaves display great drops of purple ink.
Now, life went on in harmony and pleasing indolence
Till Mrs. Squash had vertigo and tumbled off the fence;
But not to earth she fell! Alas,--but down, with all her force,
Upon old Father Pumpkin's head, and cracked his skull, of course.
At this a fearful din arose. The pods began to split,
Cucumbers turned a sickly hue, the _daikon_ had a fit,
The sweet potatoes rent the ground,--the egg-plant dropped his loom,
While every polished berry seemed to gain an added gloom.
And, worst of all, there came a man, who once had planted them.
He dug that little family up by root and leaf and stem,
He piled them high in baskets, in a most unfeeling way--
All this was told me by the cook,--we ate the last to-day.
MARY MCNEIL FENOLLOSA
THE CHOICE
When skies are blue and days are bright
A kitchen-garden's my delight,
Set round with rows of decent box
And blowsy girls of hollyhocks.
Before the lark his Lauds hath done
And ere the corncrake's southward gone;
Before the thrush good-night hath said
And the young Summer's put to bed.
The currant-bushes' spicy smell,
Homely and honest, likes me well,
The while on strawberries I feast,
And raspberries the sun hath kissed.
Beans all a-blowing by a row
Of hives that great with honey go,
With mignonette and heaths to yield
The plundering bee his honey-field.
Sweet herbs in plenty, blue borage
And the delicious mint and sage,
Rosemary, marjoram, and rue,
And thyme to scent the winter through.
Here are small apples growing round,
And apricots all golden-gowned,
And plums that presently will flush
And show their bush a Burning Bush.
Cherries in nets against the wall,
Where Master Thrush his madrigal
Sings, and makes oath a churl is he
Who grudges cherries for a fee.
Lavender, sweet-briar, orris. Here
Shall Beauty make her pomander,
Her sweet-balls for to lay in clothes
That wrap her as the leaves the rose.
Take roses red and lilies white,
A kitchen-garden's my delight;
Its gillyflowers and phlox and cloves,
And its tall cote of irised doves.
KATHARINE TYNAN
THOUGHTS FER THE DISCURAGED FARMER
The summer winds is sniffin' round the bloomin' locus' trees;
And the clover in the pastur' is a big day fer the bees,
And they been a-swiggin' honey, above board and on the sly,
Tel they stutter in theyr buzzin' and stagger as they fly.
The flicker on the fence-rail 'pears to jest spit on his wings
And roll up his feathers, by the sassy way he sings;
And the hoss-fly is a-whettin'-up his forelegs fer biz,
And the off-mare is a-switchin' all of her tail they is.
You can hear the blackbirds jawin' as they foller up the plow--
Oh, theyr bound to git theyr brekfast, and theyr not a carin' how;
So they quarrel in the furries, and they quarrel on the wing--
But theyr peaceabler in pot-pies than any other thing:
And it's when I git my shotgun drawed up in stiddy rest,
She's as full of tribbelation as a yeller-jacket's nest;
And a few shots before dinner, when the sun's a-shinin' right,
Seems to kindo'-sorto' sharpen up a feller's appetite!
They's been a heap o' rain, but the sun's out to-day,
And the clouds of the wet spell is all cleared away,
And the woods is all the greener, and the grass is greener still;
It may rain again to-morry, but I don't think it will.
Some says the crops is ruined, and the corn's drownded out,
And propha-sy the wheat will be a failure, without doubt;
But the kind Providence that has never failed us yet,
Will be on hand onc't more at the 'leventh hour, I bet!