The Deserted Garden
I mind me in the days departed,
How often underh the sun
With childish bounds I used to run
To a garden loed.
The beds and walks were vanished quite;
And wheresoeer had struck the spade,
The gree grasses Nature laid
To sanctify her right.
I called the place my wilderness,
For no oered there but I;
The sheep looked in, the grass to espy,
And passed it heless.
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 beh the boughs, and found
A circle smooth of mossy ground
Beh 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
Ohe 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 ged for shroud!
Nor thought that gardener, (full of ss
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 sce or loves pliment,
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 plae!
Friends, blame me not! a narrow ken
Has childhood twixt the sun and sward;
We draw the moral afterward,
We feel the gladhen.
And gladdest hours for me did glide
In sile the rose-tree wall:
A thrush made gladness musical
Upoher side.
Nor he nor I did eer ine
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 plete,
I brought dear 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 miories; till the breeze
Made sounds poeti 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.
Ahrush may there rehearse
The madrigals which sweetest are;
No more for me! myself afar
Do sing a sadder verse.
Ah me, ah me! whe I lay
In that childs- so greenly wrought,
I laughed unto myself and thought
The time will pass away.
And still I laughed, and did not fear
But that, wheneer ast away
The childish t