Behind a Wall

I own a solace shut within my heart, A garden full of many a quaint delight And warm with drowsy, poppied sunshine; bright, Flaming with lilies out of whose cups dart Shining things With powdered wings.

Here terrace sinks to terrace, arbors close The ends of dreaming paths; a wanton wind Jostles the half-ripe pears, and then, unkind, Tumbles a-slumber in a pillar rose, With content Grown indolent.

By night my garden is o'erhung with gems Fixed in an onyx setting. Fireflies Flicker their lanterns in my dazzled eyes. In serried rows I guess the straight, stiff stems Of hollyhocks Against the rocks.

So far and still it is that, listening, I hear the flowers talking in the dawn; And where a sunken basin cuts the lawn, Cinctured with iris, pale and glistening, The sudden swish Of a waking fish.