• I laid me down upon a bank,
    Where Love lay sleeping;
    I heard among the rushes dank
    Weeping, weeping.
    Then I went to the heath and the wild,
    To the thistles and thorns of the waste;
    And they told me how they were beguiled,
    Driven out, and compelled to the chaste.
    I went to the Garden of Love,
    And saw what I never had seen;
    A Chapel was...

  • If any sense in mortal dust remains
    When mine has been refin'd from flower to flower,
    Won from the sun all colours, drunk the shower
    And delicate winy dews, and gain'd the gains
    Which elves who sleep in airy bells, a-swing
    Through half a summer day, for love bestow,
    Then in some warm old garden let me grow
    To such a perfect, lush, ambrosian thing...

  • I saw thy beauty in its high estate
      Of perfect empire, where at set of sun
    In the cool twilight of thy lucent leaves
      The dewy freshness told that day was done.

    Hast thou no gift beyond thine ivory cone’s
      Surpassing loveliness? Art thou not near—
    More near than we—to nature’s silentness;
      Is it not voiceful to thy finer ear?

    ...
  • When our babe he goeth walking in his garden,
      Around his tinkling feet the sunbeams play;
        The posies they are good to him,
        And bow them as they should to him,
      As fareth he upon his kingly way;
        And birdlings of the wood to him
      Make music, gentle music, all the day,
    When our babe he goeth walking in his garden.

    ...

  •         “se dio ti lasci, lettor, prender frutto
    Di tua lezione.”

  • I passed by a garden, a little Dutch garden,
      Where useful and pretty things grew,—
    Heart’s-ease and tomatoes, and pinks and potatoes,
      And lilies and onions and rue.

    I saw in that garden, that little Dutch garden,
      A chubby Dutch man with a spade,
    And a rosy Dutch frau with a shoe like a scow,
      And a flaxen haired little Dutch maid...

  • Fair is each budding thing the garden shows,
      From spring’s frail crocus to the latest bloom
    Of fading autumn. Every wind that blows
      Across that glowing tract sips rare perfume
    From all the tangled blossoms tossing there;—
    Soft winds, they fain would linger long, nor any farther fare.

    The morning-glories ripple o’er the hedge
      And...

  • Dumb Mother of all music, let me rest
    On thy great heart while summer days pass by;
    While all the heat up-quivers, let me lie
    Close gathered to the fragrance of thy breast.
    Let not the pipe of birds from some high nest
    Give voice unto a thought of melody,
    Nor dreaming clouds afloat along the sky
    Meet any wind of promise from the west....

  • From The Atlantic Magazine
    WHEN to the garden of untroubled thought
        I came of late, and saw the open door,
        And wished again to enter, and explore
    The sweet, wild ways with stainless bloom inwrought,
    And bowers of innocence with beauty fraught,
        It seemed some purer voice must speak before
        I dared to tread that garden loved...

  • I Passed by a garden, a little Dutch garden,
      Where useful and pretty things grew,—
    Heart’s-ease and tomatoes, and pinks and potatoes,
      And lilies and onions and rue.

    I saw in that garden, that little Dutch garden,
      A chubby Dutch man with a spade,
    And a rosy Dutch frau with a shoe like a scow,
      And a flaxen-haired little Dutch maid...