Edwin Markham
Wisdom am IWhen thou art but a fool;My part the man,When thou hast played the clod;Hast lost thy garden?When the eve is cool,Harken!—'tis I who walkThere with thy God!
Wisdom am IWhen thou art but a fool;My part the man,When thou hast played the clod;Hast lost thy garden?When the eve is cool,Harken!—'tis I who walkThere with thy God!
Margaret Steele Anderson
This rose so exquisite,So perfect, so complete,Beauty beyond all price,—With the hour it dies.God makes Him roses fast,With such magnificent haste,Multitudes, multitudes,In gardens, fields and woods.The roses tell His praiseTheir little length of days;Testify to His name,Gold on gold, flame on flame.They are scarce here, scarce blown,But they are gone, are flown;The gardener's broom must sweep themAnd in the darkness heap them.Drift of rose-leaves uponThe garden-bed, the lawn:The exquisite thought of GodIs scattered, wasted abroad.What of the soul of the rose?It shall not die with those;It shall wake, shall live againIn God's rose-garden.It shall climb rose-trellisesBefore God's palaces;The Eternal Rose shall coverThe House of God all over.She shall breathe out her soulAnd yet living, made whole,Shall offer her oblationOut of her purest passion.She shall know all blissWhere God's garden is:The rose drinking her fill isOf joy with her sister lilies.Where the Water of Life sweetBathes her from head to feet,The River of Life flows—There is the Rose.
This rose so exquisite,So perfect, so complete,Beauty beyond all price,—With the hour it dies.
God makes Him roses fast,With such magnificent haste,Multitudes, multitudes,In gardens, fields and woods.
The roses tell His praiseTheir little length of days;Testify to His name,Gold on gold, flame on flame.
They are scarce here, scarce blown,But they are gone, are flown;The gardener's broom must sweep themAnd in the darkness heap them.
Drift of rose-leaves uponThe garden-bed, the lawn:The exquisite thought of GodIs scattered, wasted abroad.
What of the soul of the rose?It shall not die with those;It shall wake, shall live againIn God's rose-garden.
It shall climb rose-trellisesBefore God's palaces;The Eternal Rose shall coverThe House of God all over.
She shall breathe out her soulAnd yet living, made whole,Shall offer her oblationOut of her purest passion.
She shall know all blissWhere God's garden is:The rose drinking her fill isOf joy with her sister lilies.
Where the Water of Life sweetBathes her from head to feet,The River of Life flows—There is the Rose.
Katharine Tynan
He came and took me by the handUp to a red rose tree,He kept His meaning to HimselfBut gave a rose to me.I did not pray Him to lay bareThe mystery to me,Enough the rose was Heaven to smellAnd His own face to see.
He came and took me by the handUp to a red rose tree,He kept His meaning to HimselfBut gave a rose to me.
I did not pray Him to lay bareThe mystery to me,Enough the rose was Heaven to smellAnd His own face to see.
Ralph Hodgson
And so must life be many-veined;The loves that hurt, the fate that blentMy life with myriad lives and ways,The processes that probed and pained,The pencillings of nights and days—Cross currents, tangling as they went,With oh, such conflict in my soul!—How should I know that they were meantJust to make living sweet and whole,Just to uncloseGod's perfect rose?
And so must life be many-veined;The loves that hurt, the fate that blentMy life with myriad lives and ways,The processes that probed and pained,The pencillings of nights and days—Cross currents, tangling as they went,With oh, such conflict in my soul!—How should I know that they were meantJust to make living sweet and whole,Just to uncloseGod's perfect rose?
Angela Morgan
An acre of land between the shore and the hills,Upon a ledge that shows my Kingdoms three,The lovely visible earth and sky and sea,Where what the curlew needs not, the farmer tills:A house that shall love me as I love it,Well-hedged, and honoured by a few ash treesThat linnets, greenfinches, and goldfinchesShall often visit and make love in and flit;A garden I need never go beyond,Broken but neat, whose sunflowers every oneAre fit to be the sign of the Rising Sun:A spring, a brook's bend, or at least a pond!For these I ask not, but neither too lateNor yet too early, for what men call content,—And also that something may be sentTo be contented with, I ask of fate.
An acre of land between the shore and the hills,Upon a ledge that shows my Kingdoms three,The lovely visible earth and sky and sea,Where what the curlew needs not, the farmer tills:
A house that shall love me as I love it,Well-hedged, and honoured by a few ash treesThat linnets, greenfinches, and goldfinchesShall often visit and make love in and flit;
A garden I need never go beyond,Broken but neat, whose sunflowers every oneAre fit to be the sign of the Rising Sun:A spring, a brook's bend, or at least a pond!
For these I ask not, but neither too lateNor yet too early, for what men call content,—And also that something may be sentTo be contented with, I ask of fate.
Edward Thomas(Edward Eastaway)
I who kept the greenhouse,Lover of trees and flowers,Oft in life saw this umbrageous elm,Measuring its generous branches with my eye,And listened to its rejoicing leavesLovingly patting each otherWith sweet æolian whispers.And well they might:For the roots had grown so wide and deepThat the soil of the hill could not withholdAught of its virtue, enriched by rain,And warmed by the sun;But yielded it all to the thrifty roots,Through which it was drawn and whirled to the trunk,And thence to the branches, and into the leaves,Wherefrom the breeze took life and sang.Now I, an under-tenant of the earth, can seeThat the branches of a treeSpread no wider than its roots.And how shall the soul of a manBe larger than the life he has lived?
I who kept the greenhouse,Lover of trees and flowers,Oft in life saw this umbrageous elm,Measuring its generous branches with my eye,And listened to its rejoicing leavesLovingly patting each otherWith sweet æolian whispers.And well they might:For the roots had grown so wide and deepThat the soil of the hill could not withholdAught of its virtue, enriched by rain,And warmed by the sun;But yielded it all to the thrifty roots,Through which it was drawn and whirled to the trunk,And thence to the branches, and into the leaves,Wherefrom the breeze took life and sang.Now I, an under-tenant of the earth, can seeThat the branches of a treeSpread no wider than its roots.And how shall the soul of a manBe larger than the life he has lived?
Edgar Lee Masters
What shall we be like whenWe cast this earthly body and attainTo immortality?What shall we be like then?Ah, who shall sayWhat vast expansions shall be ours that day?What transformations of this house of clay,To fit the heavenly mansions and the light of day?Ah, who shall say?But this we know,—We drop a seed into the ground,A tiny, shapeless thing, shrivelled and dry,And, in the fulness of its time, is seenA form of peerless beauty, robed and crownedBeyond the pride of any earthly queen,Instinct with loveliness, and sweet and rare,The perfect emblem of its Maker's care.This from a shrivelled seed?——Then may man hope indeed!For man is but the seed of what he shall be,When, in the fulness of his perfecting,He drops the husk and cleaves his upward way,Through earth's retardings and the clinging clay,Into the sunshine of God's perfect day.No fetters then! No bonds of time or space!But powers as ample as the boundless graceThat suffered man, and death, and yet, in tenderness,Set wide the door, and passed Himself before—As He had promised—to prepare a place.Yea, we may hope!For we are seeds,Dropped into earth for heavenly blossoming.Perchance, when comes the time of harvesting,His loving careMay find some use for even a humble tare.We know not what we shall be—only this—That we shall be made like Him—as He is.
What shall we be like whenWe cast this earthly body and attainTo immortality?What shall we be like then?
Ah, who shall sayWhat vast expansions shall be ours that day?What transformations of this house of clay,To fit the heavenly mansions and the light of day?Ah, who shall say?
But this we know,—We drop a seed into the ground,A tiny, shapeless thing, shrivelled and dry,And, in the fulness of its time, is seenA form of peerless beauty, robed and crownedBeyond the pride of any earthly queen,Instinct with loveliness, and sweet and rare,The perfect emblem of its Maker's care.
This from a shrivelled seed?——Then may man hope indeed!
For man is but the seed of what he shall be,When, in the fulness of his perfecting,He drops the husk and cleaves his upward way,Through earth's retardings and the clinging clay,Into the sunshine of God's perfect day.No fetters then! No bonds of time or space!But powers as ample as the boundless graceThat suffered man, and death, and yet, in tenderness,Set wide the door, and passed Himself before—As He had promised—to prepare a place.
Yea, we may hope!For we are seeds,Dropped into earth for heavenly blossoming.Perchance, when comes the time of harvesting,His loving careMay find some use for even a humble tare.
We know not what we shall be—only this—That we shall be made like Him—as He is.
John Oxenham
Lord, I ask a garden in a quiet spotwhere there may be a brook with a good flow,an humble little house covered with bell-flowersand a wife and a son who shall resemble Thee.I should wish to live many years, free from hates,and make my verses, as the riversthat moisten the earth, fresh and pure.Lord, give me a path with trees and birds.I wish that you would never take my mother,for I should wish to tend her as a childand put her to sleep with kisses, when somewhat oldshe may need the sun.
Lord, I ask a garden in a quiet spotwhere there may be a brook with a good flow,an humble little house covered with bell-flowersand a wife and a son who shall resemble Thee.
I should wish to live many years, free from hates,and make my verses, as the riversthat moisten the earth, fresh and pure.Lord, give me a path with trees and birds.
I wish that you would never take my mother,for I should wish to tend her as a childand put her to sleep with kisses, when somewhat oldshe may need the sun.
R. Arevalo Martinez
My flower-room is such a little place,Scarce twenty feet by nine, yet in that spaceI have met God; yea, many a radiant hourHave talked with Him, the All-Embracing Cause,About His laws.And he has shown me, in each vine and flower,Such miracles of powerThat day by day this flower-room of mineHas come to be a shrine.Fed by the self-same soil and atmosphere,Pale, tender shoots appear,Rising to greet the light in that sweet room.One speeds to crimson bloom,One slowly creeps to unassuming grace,One climbs, one trails,One drinks the light and moisture,One exhales.Up through the earth together, stem by stem,Two plants push swiftly in a floral race,Till one sends forth a blossom like a gem,And one gives only fragrance.In a seed,So small it scarce is felt within the hand,Lie hidden such delightsOf scents and sights,When by the elements of Nature freed,As paradise must have at its command.From shapeless roots and ugly bulbous things,What gorgeous beauty springs!Such infinite variety appears,A hundred artists in a hundred yearsCould never copy from a floral worldThe marvels that in leaf and bud lie curled.Nor could the most colossal mind of manCreate one little seed of plant or vineWithout assistance from the First Great Plan,Without the aid divine.Who but a GodCould draw from light and moisture, heat and cold,And fashion in earth's mold,A multitude of blooms to deck one sod?Who but a God?Not one man knowsJust why the bloom and fragrance of the rose,Or how its tints were blent;Or why the white camellia, without scent,Up through the same soil grows;Or how the daisy and the violetAnd blades of grass first on wild meadows met.Not one, not one man knows,The wisest but suppose.This flower-room of mineHas come to be a shrine,And I go henceEach day with larger faith and reverence.
My flower-room is such a little place,Scarce twenty feet by nine, yet in that spaceI have met God; yea, many a radiant hourHave talked with Him, the All-Embracing Cause,About His laws.And he has shown me, in each vine and flower,Such miracles of powerThat day by day this flower-room of mineHas come to be a shrine.
Fed by the self-same soil and atmosphere,Pale, tender shoots appear,Rising to greet the light in that sweet room.One speeds to crimson bloom,One slowly creeps to unassuming grace,One climbs, one trails,One drinks the light and moisture,One exhales.Up through the earth together, stem by stem,Two plants push swiftly in a floral race,Till one sends forth a blossom like a gem,And one gives only fragrance.In a seed,So small it scarce is felt within the hand,Lie hidden such delightsOf scents and sights,When by the elements of Nature freed,As paradise must have at its command.
From shapeless roots and ugly bulbous things,What gorgeous beauty springs!Such infinite variety appears,A hundred artists in a hundred yearsCould never copy from a floral worldThe marvels that in leaf and bud lie curled.Nor could the most colossal mind of manCreate one little seed of plant or vineWithout assistance from the First Great Plan,Without the aid divine.
Who but a GodCould draw from light and moisture, heat and cold,And fashion in earth's mold,A multitude of blooms to deck one sod?Who but a God?Not one man knowsJust why the bloom and fragrance of the rose,Or how its tints were blent;Or why the white camellia, without scent,Up through the same soil grows;Or how the daisy and the violetAnd blades of grass first on wild meadows met.Not one, not one man knows,The wisest but suppose.This flower-room of mineHas come to be a shrine,And I go henceEach day with larger faith and reverence.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Vestured and veiled with twilight,Lulled in the winter's ease,Dim, and happy, and silent,My garden dreams by its trees.Urn of the sprayless fountain,Glimmering nymph and faun,Gleam through the dark-plumed cedar,Fade on the dusky lawn.Here is no stir of summer,Here is no pulse of spring;Never a bud to burgeon,Never a bird to sing.Dreams—and the kingdom of quiet!Only the dead leaves lieOver the fallen rosesUnder the shrouded sky.Folded and fenced with silenceMindless of moil and mart,It is twilight here in my garden,And twilight here in my heart.
Vestured and veiled with twilight,Lulled in the winter's ease,Dim, and happy, and silent,My garden dreams by its trees.
Urn of the sprayless fountain,Glimmering nymph and faun,Gleam through the dark-plumed cedar,Fade on the dusky lawn.
Here is no stir of summer,Here is no pulse of spring;Never a bud to burgeon,Never a bird to sing.
Dreams—and the kingdom of quiet!Only the dead leaves lieOver the fallen rosesUnder the shrouded sky.
Folded and fenced with silenceMindless of moil and mart,It is twilight here in my garden,And twilight here in my heart.
Rosamund Marriott Watson
The path runs straight between the flowering rows,A moonlit path hemmed in by beds of bloom,Where phlox and marigolds dispute for roomWith tall, red dahlias and the briar rose.'Tis reckless prodigality which throwsInto the night these wafts of rich perfumeWhich sweep across the garden like a plume.Over the trees a single bright star glows.Dear garden of my childhood, here my yearsHave run away like little grains of sand;The moments of my life, its hopes and fearsHave all found utterance here, where now I stand;My eyes ache with the weight of unshed tears,You are my home, do you not understand?
The path runs straight between the flowering rows,A moonlit path hemmed in by beds of bloom,Where phlox and marigolds dispute for roomWith tall, red dahlias and the briar rose.'Tis reckless prodigality which throwsInto the night these wafts of rich perfumeWhich sweep across the garden like a plume.Over the trees a single bright star glows.Dear garden of my childhood, here my yearsHave run away like little grains of sand;The moments of my life, its hopes and fearsHave all found utterance here, where now I stand;My eyes ache with the weight of unshed tears,You are my home, do you not understand?
Amy Lowell
I heard a woodthrush in the duskTwirl three notes and make a star—My heart that walked with bitternessCame back from very far.Three shining notes were all he had,And yet they made a starry call—I caught life back against my breastAnd kissed it, scars and all.
I heard a woodthrush in the duskTwirl three notes and make a star—My heart that walked with bitternessCame back from very far.
Three shining notes were all he had,And yet they made a starry call—I caught life back against my breastAnd kissed it, scars and all.
Sara Teasdale
Teach me, Father, how to goSoftly as the grasses grow;Hush my soul to meet the shockOf the wild world as a rock;But my spirit, propt with power,Make as simple as a flower.Let the dry heart fill its cup,Like a poppy looking up;Let life lightly wear her crown,Like a poppy looking down,When its heart is filled with dewAnd its life begins anew.Teach me, Father, how to beKind and patient as a tree.Joyfully the crickets croonUnder shady oak at noon;Beetle, on his mission bent,Tarries in that cooling tent.Let me, also, cheer a spot,Hidden field or garden grot—Place where passing souls can restOn the way and be their best.
Teach me, Father, how to goSoftly as the grasses grow;Hush my soul to meet the shockOf the wild world as a rock;But my spirit, propt with power,Make as simple as a flower.Let the dry heart fill its cup,Like a poppy looking up;Let life lightly wear her crown,Like a poppy looking down,When its heart is filled with dewAnd its life begins anew.
Teach me, Father, how to beKind and patient as a tree.Joyfully the crickets croonUnder shady oak at noon;Beetle, on his mission bent,Tarries in that cooling tent.Let me, also, cheer a spot,Hidden field or garden grot—Place where passing souls can restOn the way and be their best.
Edwin Markham
"See this my garden,Large and fair!"—Thus, to his friend,The Philosopher."'Tis not too long,"His friend replied,With truth exact,—"Nor yet too wide.But well compact,If somewhat crampedOn every side."Quick the reply—"But see how high!—It reaches upTo God's blue sky!"
"See this my garden,Large and fair!"—Thus, to his friend,The Philosopher.
"'Tis not too long,"His friend replied,With truth exact,—"Nor yet too wide.But well compact,If somewhat crampedOn every side."
Quick the reply—"But see how high!—It reaches upTo God's blue sky!"
John Oxenham