* * * * *
MY GARDEN.
If I could put my woods in song,
And tell what's there enjoyed,
All men would to my gardens throng,
And leave the cities void.
In my plot no tulips blow,
Snow-loving pines and oaks instead,
And rank the savage maples grow
From spring's faint flush to autumn red.
My garden is a forest-ledge,
Which older forests bound;
The banks slope down to the blue lake-edge,
Then plunge in depths profound.
Here once the Deluge ploughed,
Laid the terraces, one by one;
Ebbing later whence it flowed,
They bleach and dry in the sun.
The sowers made haste to depart,
The wind and the birds which sowed it;
Not for fame, nor by rules of art,
Planted these and tempests flowed it.
Waters that wash my garden-side
Play not in Nature's lawful web,
They heed not moon or solar tide,--
Five years elapse from flood to ebb.
Hither hasted, in old time, Jove,
And every god,--none did refuse;
And be sure at last came Love,
And after Love, the Muse.
Keen ears can catch a syllable,
As if one spake to another
In the hemlocks tall, untamable,
And what the whispering grasses smother.
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