The Melody of Earth Part 31

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 pa.s.ses 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 G.o.ds in my garden; They have faces young and pale; And a hundred thousand roses here Enrapture the nightingale.

Yet, among the G.o.ds of the garden, The roses and G.o.ds, 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 gra.s.s 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 s.h.i.+mmer 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 b.u.t.terflies 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 gra.s.s, to feel The wrinkles of the soul smooth out, to see G.o.d'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 friends.h.i.+ps 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.