Part 26 (2/2)

In the garden of the heart, Ere the sun of life is set, O many a wild rose blooms and dreams Of many an old regret!

CHARLES HANSON TOWNE

A HAUNTED GARDEN

Between the moss and stone The lonely lilies rise; Wasted and overgrown The tangled garden lies.

Weeds climb about the stoop And clutch the crumbling walls; The drowsy gra.s.ses droop-- The night wind falls.

The place is like a wood; No sign is there to tell Where rose and iris stood That once she loved so well.

Where phlox and asters grew, A leafless thornbush stands, And shrubs that never knew Her tender hands....

Over the broken fence The moonbeams trail their shrouds; Their tattered cerements Cling to the gauzy clouds, In ribbons frayed and thin-- And startled by the light, Silence shrinks deeper in The depths of night.

Useless lie spades and rakes; Rust's on the garden-tools.

Yet, where the moonlight makes Nebulous silver pools, A ghostly shape is cast-- Something unseen has stirred ...

Was it a breeze that pa.s.sed?

Was it a bird?

Dead roses lift their heads Out of a gra.s.sy tomb; From ruined pansy-beds A thousand pansies bloom.

The gate is opened wide-- The garden that has been, Now blossoms like a bride ...

_Who entered in?_

LOUIS UNTERMEYER

THE DUSTY HOUR-GLa.s.s

It had been a trim garden, With parterres of fringed pinks and gillyflowers, and smooth-raked walks.

Silks and satins had brushed the box edges of its alleys.

The curved stone lips of its fishponds had held the rippled reflections of tricorns and powdered periwigs.

The branches of its trees had glittered with lanterns, and swayed to the music of flutes and violins.

Now, the fishponds are green with sc.u.m; And paths and flower-beds are run together and overgrown.

Only at one end is an octagonal Summerhouse not yet in ruins.

Through the lozenged panes of its windows, you can see the interior: A dusty bench; a fireplace, with a lacing of letters carved in the stone above it; A broken ball of worsted rolled away into a corner.

_Dolci, dolci, i giorni pa.s.sati!_

AMY LOWELL

THE SONG OF WANDERING AENGUS

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