XX.
Yet be blessëd to the height
Of all good and all delight

Pervious to thy nature;
Only loved beyond that line,
With a love that answers thine,

Loving fellow-creature!

THE DESERTED GARDEN.

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 ; 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.
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,

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.

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,
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,
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

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 !

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,
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.
Because the garden was deserted,

The blither place for me!

Friends, blame me not! a narrow ken, Has childhood 'twixt the sun and swar:l : We draw the moral afterward

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.

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,
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)
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,

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.

My childhood from my life is parted,
My footstep from the moss which drew
Its fairy circle round : anew

The garden is deserted.

Another thrush may there rehearse
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,
I laughed unto myself and thought

“The time will pass away.'

And still I laughed, and did not fear
But that, whene'er was passed away
The childish time, some happier play

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!

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, 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,
That I who was, would shrink to be

That happy child again.

MY DOVES.

O Wiesheit! Du red'st wie eine Taube !–GOETIIE.

My little doves have left a nest

Upon an Indian tree,
Whose leaves fantastic take their rest

Or motion from the sea;
For, ever there, the sea-winds go
With sunlit paces to and fro.

The tropic flowers looked up to it,

The tropic stars looked down, And there my little doves did sit,

With feathers softly brown, And glittering eyes that showed their right To general Nature's deep delight.