The Garden of the Sea
THE infinite garden of the sea is His
To play in. Gravely smiling He resigns
To man his choice—this rugged plot of earth,
Watches man tear it with his deep canals,
Wound it with iron rails, scar it with roads,
And spot its pleasant freshness with the sore
Of festering cities, oozing heavy smoke.
He sees and He forgives. Then gently takes
His pliant sea into His yearning hands—
As an old mother might caress a doll
When all her sons are dead—and wistfully
He moulds it. O, that He might so thrust man—
That interloping soul of stubbornness—
The solitary irreconcilable
Of His subservient Universe—within
The grim, unalterable grooves of law!
But, ah! the sea, the fecund woman-sea,
Is His to fashion as He wills! He girds
It round with whitely gleaming paths of beach;
Then, at His word, the blossoms of the spray
Rise on their swaying wave-stalks, bloom and break,
And scatter desolate petals on the foam.
League-long His flower-bordered avenues
In bending sward of blossom run. Lo, now
A winter comes unwonted, heaping high
His garden world with snow of wasted blooms.
Or Spring sweeps in resistless, and the sea
Shimmers—an orchard in her nuptial white!
And sometimes He will smooth His garden plot,
And cover with trim tapestry of grass
Its restless beauty, till there shyly break
The daisies through, like pale hands timorous
And fragile, groping blindly to the sun.
Sometimes he plans great curving pathways, where
'Neath sullen shoulders of cool greenery
The shadows crouch, and high above the sun
Whispers his sunny secrets to the boughs
That sway and ripple everlastingly.
And sometimes, hidden by a moving ridge
From ships that flit like furtive white moths by,
The Master of the garden gravely walks
The cool green paths in reverie along:
Ah, what if I could turn into that lane
Of pulsing wave, and see Him pacing there,
As once of old they saw Him, with that look
Of wistful sadness on His old kind face!
poem by Arthur Henry Adams
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At Parting II
AND you could leave me now--
After the first remembered whispered vow
Which sings for ever and ever in my ears--
The vow which God among His Angels hears--
After the long-drawn years,
The slow hard tears,
Could break new ground, and wake
A new strange garden to blossom for your sake,
And leave me here alone,
In the old garden that was once our own?
How should I learn to bear
Our garden's pleasant ways and pleasant air,
Her flowers, her fruits, her lily, her rose and thorn,
When only in a picture these appear--
These, once alive, and always over-dear?
Ah--think again: the rose you used to wear
Must still be more than other roses be
The flower of flowers. Ah, pity, pity me!
For in my acres is no plot of ground
Whereon could any garden site be found,
I have but little skill
To water weed and till
And make the desert blossom like the rose;
Yet our old garden knows
If I have loved its ways and walks and kept
The garden watered, and the pleasance swept.
Yet--if you must--go now:
Go, with my blessing filling both your hands,
And, mid the desert sands
Which life drifts deep round every garden wall,
Make your new festival
Of bud and blossom--red rose and green leaf.
No blight born of my grief
Shall touch your garden, love; but my heart's prayer
Shall draw down blessings on you from the air,
And all we learned of leaf and plant and tree
Shall serve you when you walk no more with me
In garden ways; and when with her you tread
The pleasant ways with blossoms overhead
And when she asks, 'How did you come to know
The secrets of the ways these green things grow?'
Then you will answer--and I, please God, hear,
'I had another garden once, my dear'.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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In the spring garden
In the spring garden
~
In the spring garden
Birds sing and chatter
While flowers raise their heads
To greet the morning sun
A garden filled with colour bright
A garden which now fills with life
The bee and the butterfly hover
From flower to flower gathering nectar
Seeding the flowers blossom
Throughout the spring garden
The dew glistens upon the grass
While the wind gently rolls in the tree
All the world slowly waking
Soon to this bounty of great beauty
Every hue from natures pallet
Is here free for all to see
In the spring garden
poem by Matthew Holloway
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The Haunted Garden
In this sad place
Memory hangs on the air
Fragile as Spring snail's tiny shell,
Coming to the sympathetic ear
Gentle as bud's green pulsing in the sun,
Suave as sin in a black velvet glove;
The old faces gaze
Wistfully as birds, among the nodding leaves,
They watch the pleasures they may never share;
And through the twilight hours
Old voices call along the river banks,
And out of the high-walled garden.
Why do they sigh,
The gentle ones in the flowering musk;
And what are the words of the song
The pale stranger sings as he walks
The garden's still, deserted paths,
Like a boy searching for his dog?
poem by Henry Treece
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The Garden
The Garden
By: Adam M. Snow
The garden blooms to your delight;
to and from this very night.
When you are but one;
this garden blooms until you're done.
Keep that in mind but out of sight;
this garden is full of roses so white.
Open up and let shine the sun;
for Springtime has only begun.
Show off your garden so bright;
for there is no need to fight.
Now go on, no need to run;
when you're in your garden my son.
poem by Adam M. Snow
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Margaret
I KNOW a garden where white lilies grow,
Under the grey sweet-laden apple boughs;
It is a garden where the roses blow,
And honeysuckle covers half the house.
O happy garden, do you keep the vows
Breathed in your quiet ear beneath the rose,
Or do you tell the tale to each soft wind that blows?
Across your grassy paths she used to stray,
She moved among you like a living flower,
Her beauty drank your beauty every day,
Your beauty decked her beauty every hour.
You gave her rose and lily for a dower,
With all sweet flowers and fruits your bosom bore--
She took them all--and now she comes not any more.
O garden, if you breathe such secret things
To the south wind who loves you, tell him this:
To spread the scented softness of his wings,
And seek that other garden where she is,
And bid him bear no blossom and no kiss;
Only, dear garden, tell the wind to say
How grey the world is grown since Margaret went away!
poem by Edith Nesbit
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The Four Queens (Maoriland)
Wellington.
HERE, where the surges of a world of sea
Break on our bastioned walls with league-long sweep,
Four fair young queens their lonely splendour keep,
Each in a city throned. The first is she
Whose face is arrogant with empery;
Her throne from out the wounded hill-side steep
Is rudely fashioned, and beneath her creep
The narrow streets; and, stretching broad and free,
Like a green-waving meadow, lies the bay,
With blossom-sails and flower-wavelots flecked.
Elate she stands; her brown and windblown hair
Haloes a face with virgin freshness fair,
As she receives, exuberant, erect,
The stubborn homage that her sisters pay.
Dunedin.
And one is fair and winsome, and her face
Is strung with winter's kisses, and is yet
With winter's tears of parting sorrow wet;
And all her figure speaks of bonny grace.
High on the circling hills her seat has place,
Within a bower of the green bush set;
And 'neath her feet the city slopes—a net
Of broad-büilt streets and green-girt garden space.
Above her high the suburbs climb to crown
Her city's battlements; and in her thrall
Lie sleeping fiords, and forests call her queen.
About her waist she winds a belt of green,
And on her gleaming city looking down,
She hears the Siren South for ever call.
Christchurch.
And one within a level city lies;
To whose tree-shaded streets and squares succeed;
A vista of white roads and bordering meads,
Until each suburb in the great plain dies.
The clustering spires to crown her fair head rise,
And for a girdle round her form she leads
The Avon, green with waving river-weeds
And swept with swaying willows. And her eyes
Are quiet with a student's reverie;
And in the hair that clouds her dreaming face
There lurks the fragrance of some older place,
And memories awake to die again,
As, confident and careless, glad and sorrow-free
She waits, queen of the margeless golden plain.
Auckland.
Set all about with walls, the last fair queen
Over a tropic city holds her sway;
Her throne on sleeping Eden, whence through grey
And red-strewn roads and gleaming gardens green
The city wanders on, and seems to lean
To bathe her beauty in the cool, clear bay,
That out past isle and islet winds its way
To the wide ocean. In her hair a sheen
Of sunlight lives; her face is sweetly pale—
A queen who seems too young and maidenly,
Her beauty all too delicate and frail,
To hold a sway imperious. But forth
From deep, dark eyes, that dreaming seem to be,
There shine the strength and passion of the North.
poem by Arthur Henry Adams
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In the Garden, With My Father
It is spring.
As in my garden, I stand.
In the garden -
My father is there;
... though long since gone...
He IS there.
I tend to the weeds,
The veggies and flowers...
He is there.
I never understood him
(as I should have, could have) ...
Until now,
Here, in the garden.
Where I, like he, work the soil.
I've come just recently
(these last few years)
To enjoy and love my garden so.
- I am not as surprised afterall, as I would have thought,
To find him here.
Here, in the garden.
He loved his garden very much.......
I - at that early age of restless youth - had no use
For such slow moving things.
But now, I see, and myself move, at a much slower pace.
Therefore, it is him I am here and now able to see,
In the garden.
Watching it all grow, so peacefully.
It is somewhat sad, that now,
When I can no longer tell him,
I understand.
For I have come to find... I love the garden too,
Just as much as he;
And we both always will.
My father - standing in the garden -
I now know.
After all these long years.
And I've missed him so;
But, how wonderful to find,
He IS here...
In the garden, our garden,
Always, with me.
poem by Smoky Hoss
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My Childhood Garden
my childhood garden
my childhood garden
lush and green
it was so happy it made me scream
my joy and hopes
and all my mopes
my childhood garden
my childhood garden
with the ups and downs
when i jumped i could not touch the ground
with my purle ponys
it made it homey
my childhood garden
my childhood garden
flying high
with the little lies
the grass fine
up in the sky my kite
my childhood garden
my childhood garden
now in the past
i now know that it can never last
now as i get taller
it was differnt when i was smaller
my childhood garden
poem by Danielle Eager
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Snowy evening
Snowy evening
Snow filling the ground
Turning the city into white
She, in a bright red dress
Walking slowly, enjoying
Her walk in the snowy evening
Towards the Fence of the garden!
Greenaries of the garden
Now in white shades
With frozen drops of ice
Covering the grass
Every little bush
Like a cotton plant
Making a lovely sense!
Few snow flakes in her hands
To taste the pretty white snow
She opens her mouth
Awesome beauty with a white perl
In hand towards her mouth
With more innocence
Trees and bushes covered with snow
Wonders if she is pretty
Or the snow fall is pretty
Unexpressed silence persists
In the garden
Till the beauty
Went down the street!
poem by Archana Prabahar
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To A Tulip-Bulb
SLEEP first,
And let the storm and winter do their worst;
Let all the garden lie
Bare to the angry sky,
The shed leaves shiver and die
Above your bed;
Let the white coverlet
Of sunlit snow be set
Over your sleeping head,
While in the earth you sleep
Where dreams are dear and deep,
And heed nor wind nor snow,
Nor how the dark moons go.
In this sad upper world where Winter's hand
Has bound with chains of ice the weary land.
Then wake
To see the whole world lovely for Spring's sake;
The garden fresh and fair
With green things everywhere,
And winter's want and care
Banished and fled;
Primrose and violet
In every border set,
With rain and sunshine fed.
Then bless the fairy song
That cradled you so long,
And bless the fairy kiss
That wakened you to this--
A world where Winter's dead and Spring doth reign
And lovers whisper in the budding lane.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Blossom
A LONE rose in a garden burned—a quivering flame,
But yesterday blindly from out the bud it came;
And now an envious wind with itching fingers leant
And touched its lingering beauty, and the petals went
Upon the twilight tossing swift,
Like little dusky boats adrift.
Then in the birth and doom of that brief rose I saw
The long unrolling of creation's one vast law.
All things were blossom, and God thrilled at that flower's birth
As when from night-sheathed chaos broke this blossom-earth.
For God no large or little knows—
A universe slept in the rose.
The scattered star-mist, that dishevelled trails through Space,
Hears the low whisper of the Spring, and to its place
Whirls vastly, and its bulk with aching life is torn,
And with a pang that shakes all Space a sun is born
But God on it bestows the heed
He gives to any wayside weed.
About it bloom the planets, like a pageantry
Of rival blossoms in a garden-galaxy.
They break and wane and wither, till upon some earth,
Faded and chill and shrunken, a pallid thing has birth;
And on a world weary with strife
Creeps forth the efflorescence Life.
Strange vegetations fiercely bloom and fall from sight;
Monsters uncouth are spawned, and sink into the night;
Huge mountains blossom white beneath the ocean spray;
Vast tropics glow where once the glacier-ice held sway—
Till, like a lichen on the stone,
Comes Man, bearing a soul unknown.
The lichen spreads, and civilisations grow forlorn,
Bloom once, and, dying, blight the place where they were born.
Incomparable, unique, each in lone splendour burns;
Each bears one perfect grace that nevermore returns.
Ah! gone is sculptured Egypt—gone
The blossom that was Babylon!
The lotus of the East, the Grecian lily cold—
Each blossoms only one new beauty to unfold.
And this rich rose, the West, that opens now so vast,
Shall tell its message, then upon the night be cast.
But still God scatters through the gloom
New seeds whence nobler flowers shall bloom.
And æons rise and fade, and still the petal-years
Fall from the trembling stem of Time, that proudly rears
Space, like the last huge blossom of the far-thrown seed;
And Space itself shall wither like a trampled weed.
But in the void the Sower still
Scatters new seed, until—until…
poem by Arthur Henry Adams
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Midsummer Dream
I dreamed of Paradise Garden;
sunlight sliding down
from an infinite sky
through cedar trees to emerald lawns;
oriental poppies six feet high,
Indian butterflies gliding by
through multilayered shades of blue.
Olympian Apollo’s statue
holds a fountain in his hands,
which swirls and mists, sparkles and cools,
cascading down to deep green pools,
where red carp flash on silver sands.
Gazing round I find,
beyond the mirror of my mind,
past flowering trees and shrubberies,
how all around
this fertile ground
the garden is confined
within a fence of iron bars,
which stretches high
to arch across and make a canopy
between me and the sky.
The falcons, hawks and eagles
which circle round are kept at bay
and cannot swoop to seize as prey
the song birds that sing here all day.
Beyond the bars, a crawling multitude
swarms to and fro insatiably
but cannot find its way
into my garden solitude.
Heavens! I thought, the truth is clear to me!
That restless swarming world
is a prison shut in by iron bars.
Only I, in my garden, am completely free!
poem by Brian Taylor
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The Gardener
For Violet
In the garden she hath found
Herb of grace and fever-few;
Woundwort there doth much abound,
Heartsease too.
Where she laid dead things away
In the chilly earth, what stir!
Whisper of Spring-time, green and gay,
Comes to her.
All Sweet-Nancies, daffodils,
Talking in their beds below
Of sweet vales and shining hills
Whither they go.
In the garden there's no grief;
God walks there and He is kind,
When the first dear crumpled leaf
Shakes in the wind.
There's no death now. Winter's done.
All's given back. The dead again
Walk with her in the wind and sun
And the sweet rain.
Heartsease in her garden plot,
Ladders-to-Heaven scale the skies;
While the dear forget-me-not
Brightens her eyes.
poem by Katharine Tynan
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Not Everyone Looks Forward To Spring
Although it is a time of bloom and blossom
When wild birds build their nests and breed and sing
It also is a time of heavy pollen
And not everybody looks forward to the Spring.
The garden in full bloom is looking lovely
And blossoms on the bushes and the trees
But pollen by the warm breeze is carried
And you hear some people sniffle, cough and sneeze.
The beauty of Spring on the artist's canvas
And Spring inspire the lyric poet to rhyme
But all of those who have an allergy to pollen
Will tell you that Spring is not their favourite time.
Not every one yearns for the warm weather
Or for the scents of blossom, rose and flower
You cannot enjoy the beauty of a sunlit garden
If you cough and sneeze one hundred times an hour.
It is a time of greenery and beauty
When wild birds build their nests and breed and sing
And Mother Nature she is at her loveliest
But not everyone looks forward to the Spring.
poem by Francis Duggan
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The Little Ghost
I knew her for a little ghost
That in my garden walked;
The wall is high—higher than most—
And the green gate was locked.
And yet I did not think of that
Till after she was gone—
I knew her by the broad white hat,
All ruffled, she had on.
By the dear ruffles round her feet,
By her small hands that hung
In their lace mitts, austere and sweet,
Her gown's white folds among.
I watched to see if she would stay,
What she would do—and oh!
She looked as if she liked the way
I let my garden grow!
She bent above my favourite mint
With conscious garden grace,
She smiled and smiled—there was no hint
Of sadness in her face.
She held her gown on either side
To let her slippers show,
And up the walk she went with pride,
The way great ladies go.
And where the wall is built in new
And is of ivy bare
She paused—then opened and passed through
A gate that once was there.
poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay
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The Daisies
In the great green park with the wooden palings -
The wooden palings so hard to climb,
There are fern and foxglove, primrose and violet,
And green things growing all the time;
And out in the open the daisies grow,
Pretty and proud in their proper places,
Millions of white-frilled daisy faces,
Millions and millions--not one or two.
And they call to the bluebells down in the wood:
'Are you out--are you in? We have been so good
All the school-time winter through,
But now it's playtime,
The gay time, the May time;
We are out and at play. Where are you?'
In the gritty garden inside the railings,
The spiky railings all painted green,
There are neat little beds of geraniums and fuchsia
With never a happy weed between.
There's a neat little grass plot, bald in places,
And very dusty to touch;
A respectable man comes once a week
To keep the garden weeded and swept,
To keep it as we don't want it kept.
He cuts the grass with his mowing-machine,
And we think he cuts it too much.
But even on the lawn, all dry and gritty,
The daisies play about.
They are so brave as well as so pretty,
You cannot keep them out.
I love them, I want to let them grow,
But that respectable man says no.
He cuts off their heads with his mowing-machine
Like the French Revolution guillotine.
He sweeps up the poor little pretty faces,
The dear little white-frilled daisy faces;
Says things must be kept in their proper places
He has no frill round his ugly face -
I wish I could find his proper place!
poem by Edith Nesbit
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I Be Or Don't Be (A Song)
I be or don’t be
Would be spreading whiff
As a blossom, As a bud
In the orchard of love
I be or don‘t be
Whatever the weather
I always will be there
To keep the orchard fresh
And in colour of desire
Will be watering it ever
As a blossom as a bud
The orchard of love
I be or don’t be
I will unfurl my shirt
And sway in the breeze
Will glow like flower
On the blossom trees
Would spread fragrance
As a blossom as a bud
In the garden of love
I be or don’t be
When I won’t be there
Her eyes with tears
Would be finding me
She would stop in reverie
Where I will meet her
As a blossom, as a bud
In the orchard of love
I be or don’t be
poem by S.D. Tiwari
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Friendship's Flower
Life is like a garden
And friendship like a flower,
That blooms and grows in beauty
With the sunshine and the shower.
And lovely are the blossoms
That are tended with great care,
By those who work unselfishly
To make the place more fair.
And, like the garden blossoms,
Friendship's flower grows more sweet
When watched and tended carefully
By those we know and meet.
And, if the seed of friendship
Is planted deep and true
And watched with understanding,
Friendship's flower will bloom for you.
poem by Winniek Koh
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Come Tend My Garden
Come to my garden Teacher.
The birds of my heart have long since flown,
And the silence tween the mottled boughs has leaden grown.
In the sunrise be the chorus of mornings' glory,
And in the noon tell of Dionysus' story.
In the night be the whistling gale,
Whisper in my ear of some furtive dale.
Come to my garden Teacher.
Scarce the lavender and the rosemary on the breeze,
Rarer now gripped in winter's freeze.
Scented memories, they warm me sometimes in the eve,
Jasmine and honey in foreign winds on exotic leave.
Heady the breath and quick its draw,
Drinking it in, its addiction no flaw.
Come to my garden Teacher.
Overgrown and unknown, bring your fingers there
And burrow neath the weeds among Angels' Hair.
White is the colour of the petals in my soul unfurled;
The oceans of your eyes I drink from chalices pearled,
Slake the thirst of my arrid land,
Spring anew life in rock and sand.
Come to my garden Teacher.
Dim the eyes and dim the skys o'erlooking here,
Yet radient in brilliance your fiery hair.
Weave strands among the pathways bare
And notice by evening some flowers rare.
On my chest lay a river of molten gold,
Come teacher, let us grow old.
poem by Keith Moynihan O' Brien
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FriendShip Flowers
Life is like a garden
And friendship like a flower,
That blooms and grows in beauty
With the sunshine and the shower.
And lovely are the blossoms
That are tended with great care,
By those who work unselfishly
To make the place more fair.
And, like the garden blossoms,
Friendship's flower grows more sweet
When watched and tended carefully
By those we know and meet.
And, if the seed of friendship
Is planted deep and true
And watched with understanding,
Friendship's flower will bloom for you (
poem by Mazher Sheikh
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