The Garden

There’s an ancient, ancient garden
That I see sometimes in dreams
Where the very Maytime sunlight plays
And glows with spectral gleams
Where the gaudy-tinted blossoms
Seem to wither into grey
And the crumbling walls and pillars
Waken thoughts of yesterday

There are vines in nooks and crannies
And there’s moss about the pool
And the tangled weedy thicket
Chokes the arbour dark and cool:
In the silent sunken pathways
Springs an herbage sparse and spare
Where the musty scent of dead things
Dulls the fragrance of the air

There is not a living creature
In the lonely space around
And the hedge-encompass’d quiet
Never echoes to a sound
As I walk, and wait, and listen
I will often seek to find
When it was I knew that garden
In an age long left behind

I will oft conjure a vision
Of a day that is no more
As I gaze upon the grey, grey scenes
I feel I knew before
Then a sadness settles o’er me
And a tremor seems to start:
For I know the flow’rs are shrivell’d hopes—
The garden is my heart!