Written by
Robert Frost |
When I go up through the mowing field,
The headless aftermath,
Smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew,
Half closes the garden path.
And when I come to the garden ground,
The whir of sober birds
Up from the tangle of withered weeds
Is sadder than any words
A tree beside the wall stands bare,
But a leaf that lingered brown,
Disturbed, I doubt not, by my thought,
Comes softly rattling down.
I end not far from my going forth
By picking the faded blue
Of the last remaining aster flower
To carry again to you.
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Written by
Amy Lowell |
The path runs straight between the flowering rows,
A moonlit path, hemmed in by beds of bloom,
Where phlox and marigolds dispute for room
With tall, red dahlias and the briar rose.
'T is reckless prodigality which throws
Into the night these wafts of rich perfume
Which sweep across the garden like a plume.
Over the trees a single bright star glows.
Dear garden of my childhood, here my years
Have run away like little grains of sand;
The moments of my life, its hopes and fears
Have 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?
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Written by
Rudyard Kipling |
A Rose, in tatters on the garden path,
Cried out to God and murmured 'gainst His Wrath,
Because a sudden wind at twilight's hush
Had snapped her stem alone of all the bush.
And God, Who hears both sun-dried dust and sun,
Had pity, whispering to that luckless one,
"Sister, in that thou sayest We did not well --
What voices heardst thou when thy petals fell?"
And the Rose answered, "In that evil hour
A voice said, `Father, wherefore falls the flower?
For lo, the very gossamers are still.
'
And a voice answered, `Son, by Allah's will!'"
Then softly as a rain-mist on the sward,
Came to the Rose the Answer of the Lord:
"Sister, before We smote the dark in twain,
Ere yet the stars saw one another plain,
Time, Tide, and Space, We bound unto the task
That thou shouldst fall, and such an one should ask.
"
Whereat the withered flower, all content,
Died as they die whose days are innocent;
While he who questioned why the flower fell
Caught hold of God and saved his soul from Hell.
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Written by
Robert William Service |
By parents I would not be pinned,
Nor in my home abide,
For I was wanton as the wind
And tameless as the tide;
So scornful of domestic hearth,
And bordered garden path,
I sought the wilder ways of earth,
The roads of wrath.
It scares me now to think of how
Foolhardily I fared;
Though mighty scarred of pelt and pow
A dozen deaths I've dared;
Yet there are trails I would explore,
And wilds that for me wait .
.
.
Alas! I'll wander nevermore,--
The hour's too late.
The folks are at my picture show,
I smoke my pipe and sigh.
Soft-slippered by the ember's glow
A baby-sitter I.
Behold! In dressing-gown of mauve,
To comfort reconciled,
A rover rocks the cradle of
His new grand-child.
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