The crescent moon is large enough to linger
A little while after the twilight goes,
This moist midsummer night the garden perfumes
Are earth and apple, dewy pine and rose.
Over my head four new-cut stars are glinting
And the inevitable night draws on;
I am alone, the old terror takes me,
Evenings will come like this when I am gone;
Evenings on evenings, years on years forever--
Be taut, my spirit, close upon and keep
The scent, the brooding chill, the gliding fire-fly,
A poem learned before I fall asleep.
Those who love the most,
Do not talk of their love,
Francesca, Guinevere,
Deirdre, Iseult, Heloise,
In the fragrant gardens of heaven
Are silent, or speak if at all
Of fragile, inconsequent things.
And a woman I used to know
Who loved one man from her youth,
Against the strength of the fates
Fighting in somber pride,
Never spoke of this thing,
But hearing his name by chance,
A light would pass over her face.
The oak-tree in front of my house
Smells different every morning.
Sometimes it smells fresh and wise
Like my mother’s hair.
Sometimes it stands ashamed
Because it doesn’t own the smell
It borrowed from our flower-garden.
Sometimes it has a windy smell,
As though it had come back from a long walk.
The oak-tree in front of my house
Has different smells, like grown up people.
My doll hides behind her pink cheeks,
So that you can’t see when she moves,
But it doesn’t matter because
She always moves when no one is looking,
And that is why people think she is still.
A trickle of dawn insinuated itself
Through the crevices of black satiation.
The elderly trees coughed, lightly, hurriedly,
In remonstrance against the invasion.
Lean with a virginal poison,
The grass-blades shook, immune to light and time.
A bird lost in a tree
Shrilly flirted with its energy....
One fool, in the garden, spoke to another.
Oh, the blue blue bloom
On the velvet cheek
Of the little pansy’s face
That hides away so still and cool
In some soft garden place!
The tiger lily’s orange fires,
The red lights from the rose
Aren’t like the gloom on that blue cheek
Of the softest flower that grows!
An old, old couple in a blossoming garden. . . .
Love, inarticulate, nestles close between them.
And the old woman and the old man.
And Love,
Sit watching fireflies. . . .
Tiny torches flashing with pale, green light
In the heavy white dew.
Oh roses. . .roses. . .roses. . .cease your blossoming!
Kind crystal dew
Put out the firefly torches
Before they light the little paths to sorrow. . . .
Earth is too beautiful. . . .
And the man and the woman are old, so old,
And tired.
Now they sit quietly with calm, closed eyes. . . .
Only Love, nestled close between them,
“Well! The red currants must be picked to-day.
They’re ready for jelly” Grandmother would say.
She never wasted words yet had her way.
In cool gray cotton gown, and black straw hat
Securely tied--She made a point of that
Though no breeze stirred the lilacs where she sat
To superintend old Jock and Marie Anne
At tasks of picking. When her palm-leaf fan
Waved slowly all was well; but my blood ran
Quicker when it moved very fast ... one knew
The hours were slipping past ... then old Jock too
And Marie Anne, would pick with greater zest.
“Granny! Red currant jelly’s much the best!”
“Black’s best for colds” she’d say, as she caressed
With firm kind fingers my rough curly head.
Through tortured weeks of hospital surgery
The old fruit garden of my childhood days
Grew close about me. Through black storms of pain
Swayed joyous boughs of rosy apple-bloom;
White blossomed branches of an old plum-tree;
Old grape-vines clinging to a sunny wall;
Great bushes of red currants and raspberries.
Through hours of torturing thirst I found again
That old fruit garden--as if body and soul
Clutched at cool juicy fruits--remembering--
Devouring them through a parched mouth of the brain.
She had a garden full of herbs.
And many another pleasant thing.
Like pink round asters in the fall.
Blue flags, white flags a week in spring.
Housewives ran in each hour or so.
For sprigs of thyme, mint, parsley too;
For pans to borrow, or some meal;
She was the kindest thing they knew.
Tall, and half slender, slightly grey.
With gay, thin lips, eyes flower-clear.
She bragged her stock was Puritan;
Her usual mood was Cavalier.
Ample of deed; clipped, warm of speech.
Each day in some large-flowered gown.
She went the rounds to sad, to sick
Saint, humorist to the faded town.
An old and quiet house set down
A windy field or two from town.
And a great clump of lavender,
All day with cross, small bees astir.
Larkspur, hot-blue as with a sting;
And mint, so brief and sharp a thing.
Tall, well-thumbed books upon a shelf;
A green, white-flowered jug of delf.
Old friends, who from the village walk
On Sunday afternoons, to talk
Of the new shop; the guests from town;
The wind that blew the apples down.
They go; the dusk comes from afar,
Like music blown from out a star.
Those Others drift across the dew;
My early love — and you — and you!
The great ghosts of the town
Up and down,
Each a gray, filmy thing,
Go by.
Sudden a brief, wet sky! —
A file of poplars vague with spring.
Drips the old garden there;
See, its torn edge about,
Scarlet, remote,
Tulips flare,
The length of one thin note! —
And are put out.
One star; the dusk; a scrap of rain.
A little sad, alone,
Out of the wet old gardens blown,
The scent of mint pricks at the pane.
And market carts go by,
Into a large, soft sky,
Of grey, of ochre, too;
Dully they go their way,
Past file of houses rainy grey,
A file of blue.
One spout is quick and sweet,
One broken and high ;
Their poignancies fill all the country street-
The ache of old regret,
Down the thin wet —
Into the large, soft sky,