| |
| I MIND me, in the days departed, | |
| How often underneath the sun | |
| With childish bounds I used to run | |
| To a garden long deserted. | |
| |
| The beds and walks were vanished quite; | 5 |
| And wheresoe’er had struck the spade, | |
| The greenest grasses Nature laid, | |
| To sanctify her right. | |
| |
| I called the place my wilderness, | |
| For no one entered there but I; | 10 |
| The sheep looked in, the grass to espy, | |
| And passed it ne’ertheless. | |
| |
| The trees were interwoven wild, | |
| And spread their boughs enough about | |
| To keep both sheep and shepherd out, | 15 |
| But not a happy child. | |
| |
| Adventurous joy it was for me! | |
| I crept beneath the boughs, and found | |
| A circle smooth of mossy ground | |
| Beneath a poplar tree. | 20 |
| |
| 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, | 25 |
| 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, | 30 |
| Has blushed beside them at the voice | |
| That likened her to such. | |
| |
| And these, to make a diadem, | |
| She often may have plucked and twined, | |
| Half-smiling as it came to mind | 35 |
| 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!— | 40 |
| |
| 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, | 45 |
| 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: | 50 |
| Because the garden was deserted, | |
| The blither place for me! | |
| |
| Friends, blame me not! a narrow ken | |
| Has childhood ’twixt the sun and sward: | |
| We draw the moral afterward— | 55 |
| 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. | 60 |
| |
| 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, | 65 |
| 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) | 70 |
| 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,— | 75 |
| 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. | 80 |
| |
| My childhood from my life is parted, | |
| My footsteps from the moss which drew | |
| Its fairy circle round: anew | |
| The garden is deserted. | |
| |
| Another thrush may there rehearse | 85 |
| 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, | 90 |
| I laughed unto myself and thought | |
| ‘The time will pass away’. | |
| |
| And still I laughed, and did not fear | |
| But that, whene’er was past away | |
| The childish time, some happier play | 95 |
| My womanhood would cheer. | |
| |
| I knew the time would pass away, | |
| And yet, beside the rose-tree wall, | |
| Dear God, how seldom, if at all, | |
| Did I look up to pray! | 100 |
| |
| 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, | 105 |
| And I have learnt to lift my face, | |
| Reminded how earth’s greenest place | |
| The colour draws from heaven,— | |
| |
| It something saith for earthly pain, | |
| But more for Heavenly promise free, | 110 |
| That I who was, would shrink to be | |
| That happy child again. | |
| |
