My Garden
IT blossomed by the summer sea,
A tiny space of tangled bloom
Wherein so many flowers found room,
A miracle it seemed to be!
Up from the ground, alert and bright,
The pansies laughed in gold and jet,
Purple and pied, and mignonette
Breathed like a spirit of delight.
Flaming the rich nasturtiums ran
Along the fence, and marigolds
“Opened afresh their starry folds”
In beauty as the day began;
While ranks of scarlet poppies gay
Waved when the soft south-wind did blow,
Superb in sunshine, to and fro,
Like soldiers proud in brave array.
And tall blue larkspur waved its spikes
Against the sea’s deep violet,
That every breeze makes deeper yet
With splendid azure where it strikes;
And rosy-pale sweet-peas climbed up,
And phloxes spread their colors fine,
Pink, white, and purple, red as wine,
And fire burned in the eschscholtzia’s cup. [California poppy]
More dear to me than words can tell
Was every cup and spray and leaf;
Too perfect for a life so brief
Seemed every star and bud and bell.
And many a maiden, fairer yet,
Came smiling to my garden gay,
Whose graceful head I decked alway
With pansy and with mignonette.
Such slender shapes of girlhood young
Haunted that little blooming space,
Each with a more delightful face
Than any flower that ever sprung!
O shadowy shapes of youthful bloom!
How fair the sweet procession glides
Down memory’s swift and silent tides,
Till lost in doubtful mists of gloom!
Year after year new flowers unfold,
Year after year fresh maidens fair,
Scenting their perfume on the air,
Follow and find their red and gold.
And while for them the poppies’ blaze
I gather, brightening into mine
The eyes of vanished beauty shine,
That gladdened long-lost summer days.
Where are they all who wide have ranged?
Where are the flowers of other years?
What ear the wistful question hears?
Ah, some are dead and all are changed.
And still the constant earth renews
Her treasured splendor; still unfold
Petals of purple and of gold
Beneath the sunshine and the dews.
But for her human children dear
Whom she has folded to her breast,
No beauty wakes them from their rest,
Nor change they with the changing year.
