Volume Iii Part 33 (1/2)

Adventurous joy it was for me!

I crept beneath the boughs, and found A circle smooth of mossy ground Beneath a poplar tree.

Old garden rose-trees hedged it in, Bedropt with roses waxen-white, Well satisfied with dew and light And careless to be seen.

Long years ago, it might befall, When all the garden flowers were trim, The grave old gardener prided him On these the most of all.

Some lady, stately overmuch, Here moving with a silken noise, Has blushed beside them at the voice That likened her to such.

Or these, to make a diadem, She often may have plucked and twined, Half-smiling as it came to mind, That few would look at them.

Oh, little thought that lady proud, A child would watch her fair white rose, When buried lay her whiter brows, And silk was changed for shroud!

Nor thought that gardener, (full of scorns For men unlearned and simple phrase,) A child would bring it all its praise By creeping through the thorns!

To me upon my low moss seat, Though never a dream the roses sent, Of science or love's compliment, I ween they smelt as sweet.

It did not move my grief to see The trace of human step departed: Because the garden was deserted, The blither place for me!

Friends, blame me not! a narrow ken Hath childhood 'twixt the sun and sward; We draw the moral afterward, We feel the gladness then.

And gladdest hours for me did glide In silence at the rose-tree wall: A thrush made gladness musical Upon the other side.

Nor he nor I did e'er incline To peck or pluck the blossoms white; How should I know but roses might Lead lives as glad as mine?

To make my hermit-home complete, I brought clear water from the spring Praised in its own low murmuring, And cresses glossy wet.

And so, I thought, my likeness grew (Without the melancholy tale) To ”gentle hermit of the dale,”

And Angelina too.

For oft I read within my nook Such minstrel stories; till the breeze Made sounds poetic in the trees, And then I shut the book.

If I shut this wherein I write, I hear no more the wind athwart Those trees, nor feel that childish heart Delighting in delight.

My childhood from my life is parted, My footstep from the moss which drew Its fairy circle round: anew The garden is deserted.

Another thrush may there rehea.r.s.e The madrigals which sweetest are; No more for me! myself afar Do sing a sadder verse.

Ah me, ah me! when erst I lay In that child's-nest so greenly wrought, I laughed unto myself and thought ”The time will pa.s.s away.”

And still I laughed, and did not fear But that, whene'er was pa.s.sed away The childish time, some happier play My womanhood would cheer.

I knew the time would pa.s.s away, And yet, beside the rose-tree wall, Dear G.o.d, how seldom, if at all, Did I look up to pray!

The time is past; and now that grows The cypress high among the trees, And I behold white sepulchres As well as the white rose,--

When graver, meeker thoughts are given, And I have learnt to lift my face, Reminded how earth's greenest place The color draws from heaven,--

It something saith for earthly pain, But more for Heavenly promise free, That I who was, would shrink to be That happy child again.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning [1806-1861]

A FORSAKEN GARDEN

In a coign of the cliff between lowland and highland, At the sea-down's edge between windward and lee, Walled round with rocks as an inland island, The ghost of a garden fronts the sea.

A girdle of brushwood and thorn encloses The steep square slope of the blossomless bed Where the weeds that grew green from the graves of its roses Now lie dead.