The Garden at Bemerton
For a Flyleaf of Herbert’s Poems
Year after year, from dusk to dusk,
How sweet this English garden grows,
Steeped in two centuries’ sun and musk,
Walled from the world in gray repose,
Harbor of honey-freighted bees,
And wealthy with the rose.
Here pinks with spices in their throats
Nod by the bitter marigold;
Here nightingales with haunting notes,
When west and east with stars are bold,
From out the twisted hawthorn-trees,
Sing back the weathers old.
All tuneful winds do down it pass;
The leaves a sudden whiteness show,
And delicate noises fill the grass;
The only flakes its spaces know
Are petals blown off briers long,
And heaped on blades below.
Ah! dawn and dusk, year after year,
’Tis more than these that keeps it rare!
We see the saintly Master here,
Pacing along the alleys fair,
And catch the throbbing of a song
Across the amber air!
Lizette Woodworth Reese