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A Benedictine Garden

1451

Living my child-life over again,

With the further hope of a fallen delight, Blithe as the birds and wise as the bees.

In green old gardens, hidden away

From sight of revel and sound of strife,—
Here have I leisure to breathe and move,
And to do my work in a nobler way;
To sing my songs, and to say my say; 1

To dream my dreams, and to love my love;
To hold my faith, and to live my life,
Making the most of its shadowy day.

Violet Fane [18

A BENEDICTINE GARDEN

THROUGH all the wind-blown aisles of May,
Faint bells of perfume swing and fall.
Within this apple-petalled wall
(A gray east, flecked with rosy day)
The pink laburnum lays her cheek
In married, matchless, lovely bliss,
Against her golden mate, to seek
His airy kiss.

Tulips, in faded splendor drest,

Brood o'er their beds, a slumbrous gloom.
Dame Peony, red and ripe with bloom,

Swells the silk housing of her breast.

The Lilac, drunk to ecstasy,

Breaks her full flagons on the air,
And drenches home the reeling bee
Who found her fair.

O cowlèd Legion of the Cross,
What solemn pleasantry is thine,
Vowing to seek the life divine

Through abnegation and through loss!

Men but make monuments of sin
Who walk the earth's ambitious round;
Thou hast the richer realm within
This garden ground.

No woman's voice takes sweeter note
Than chanting of this plumèd choir.
No jewel ever wore the fire

Hung on a dewdrop's quivering throat.
A ruddier pomp and pageantry

Than world's delight o'erfleets thy sod;
And choosing this, thou hast in fee

The peace of God.

Alice Brown [1857

AN AUTUMN GARDEN

My tent stands in a garden
Of aster and golden-rod,

Tilled by the rain and the sunshine,
And sown by the hand of God,-
An old New England pasture
Abandoned to peace and time,
And by the magic of beauty
Reclaimed to the sublime.

About it are golden woodlands

Of tulip and hickory;

On the open ridge behind it

You may mount to a glimpse of sea,-

The far-off, blue, Homeric

Rim of the world's great shield,

A border of boundless glamor

For the soul's familiar field.

In purple and gray-wrought lichen.
The boulders lie in the sun;
Along its grassy footpath,
The white-tailed rabbits run.

An Autumn Garden

The crickets work and chirrup
Through the still afternoon;
And the owl calls at twilight
Under the frosty moon.

The odorous wild grape clambers

Over the tumbling wall,

And through the autumnal quiet
The chestnuts open and fall.

T 1

Sharing time's freshness and fragrance,
Part of the earth's great soul,
Here man's spirit may ripen

To wisdom serene and whole.

Shall we not grow with the asters?-

Never reluctant nor sad,

Not counting the cost of being,

Living to dare and be glad.

Shall we not lift with the crickets

A chorus of ready cheer,

Braving the frost of oblivion,
Quick to be happy here?

The deep red cones of the sumach
And the woodbine's crimson sprays
Have bannered the common roadside
For the pageant of passing days.
These are the oracles Nature
Fills with her holy breath,

Giving them glory of color,
Transcending the shadow of death.

Here in the sifted sunlight
A spirit seems to brood

On the beauty and worth of being,
In tranquil, instinctive mood;
And the heart, athrob with gladness
Such as the wise earth knows,
Wells with a full thanksgiving
For the gifts that life bestows:

1453

For the ancient and virile nurture
Of the teeming primordial ground,
For the splendid gospel of color,
The rapt revelations of sound;
For the morning-blue above us
And the rusted gold of the fern,
For the chickadee's call to valor
Bidding the faint-heart turn;

For fire and running water,
Snowfall and summer rain;
For sunsets and quiet meadows,
The fruit and the standing grain;
For the solemn hour of moonrise
Over the crest of trees,

When the mellow lights are kindled

In the lamps of the centuries.

For those who wrought aforetime,

Led by the mystic strain

To strive for the larger freedom,
And live for the greater gain;

For plenty and peace and playtime,
The homely goods of earth,
And for rare immaterial treasures
Accounted of little worth;

For art and learning and friendship, Where beneficent truth is supreme,

Those everlasting cities

Built on the hills of dream;

For all things growing and goodly
That foster this life, and breed
The immortal flower of wisdom

Out of the mortal seed.

But most of all for the spirit

That can not rest nor bide
In stale and sterile convenience,
Nor safety proven and tried,

The Deserted Garden

1455

But still inspired and driven,
Must seek what better may be,
And up from the loveliest garden
Must climb for a glimpse of sea.

Bliss Carman [1861

UNGUARDED

THE Mistress of the Roses
Is haply far away,

And through her garden closes
What strange intruders stray.

See on its rustic spindles

The sundrop's amber fire! And the goldenrod enkindles The embers on its spire.

The dodder's shining tangle

From the meadow brook steals in,

Where in this shadowed angle

The pale lace-makers spin.

Here's Black-Eyed Susan weeping
Into exotic air,

And Bouncing Bet comes creeping
Back to her old parterre.

Now in this pleasant weather

So sweetly reconciled→→

They dwell and dream together,

The kin of court and wild.

Ada Foster Murray [18

THE DESERTED GARDEN

I MIND me in the days departed,
How often underneath the sun,
With childish bounds I used to run

To a garden long deserted.:

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