# The Bengali Book of English Verse/The Garden Passion (Manmohan Ghose)

The Garden Passion.
It is a garden, shy and sweet, For youth and tongue-tied passion meet; A green dim garden shaded deep, Breathing of lilies, love, and sleep. Here only flowers in darkness grow; Here only whispering waters flow, And fishes glide, and linnets sing, And Summer dances with the Spring, And here in evenings gradual gloom Have Julian and Irene come.
Speechless they stand beneath the shade The burning youth, the lovely maid. Bashfully droop'd the lashes sheathe The splendour of her eyes beneath; And o'er her cheek and brow of snow The virgin roses come and go. His heart too strong, his tongue too weak, Only his lustrous eyes can speak; And they seem all one pent desire An incommunicable fire!
Conscious of that impassioned gaze She turns away her glowing face
As though too rich a joy and shame In that deep crimson mantling came. And with averted cheek and hands Folded one rapturous moment stands. Empresslike she smiles, and fain Would linger o'er his gorgeous pain. But ah! that passion-eaten look Her gentle bosom cannot brook. Tears start into her eyes: she turns With shining eyes, and cheek that burns. Love and reluctant maidenhood Her heart impelled, her heart withstood, A rosy strife; but soon that glow Of shame she checks, and, tranquil now, Raising her soft-fringed eyelids dim, Bends full her starry gaze on him.
O what a heaven, what land unknown To Julian's happy sight is shown! To all his agonies, all his sighs What opening, sudden paradise! Abandoned to that glorious gaze, A moment in sweet dread he stays: That gaze of speechless amethyst, Its meaning, could it e'er be missed? He takes her hand inflamed with bliss, Her willing, trembling hand in his; And in glad tears she hides her face Lock'd in his passionate embrace.
To his her darling cheek is prest, Against her own his fever'd breast; Love gleams from her eyes into his In answer to each glowing kiss. And while a smile, a sigh there springs, Kisses and tears,—sweet idle things,
Things dearer than the world is worth, In speech their brimming hearts break forth Words that with ravishing music pierce Each other's hearts, each other's ears. Hers are dim murmurs, his a voice That makes the silent air rejoice.
Health glows upon their cheeks, its flood Courses impetuous in their blood; They feel like some absorbing truth The fulness of their godlike youth, Its strength, its beauty, its delight O'erflows their bosoms, fills their sight. And all this garden, all this glade, Water and wind and flower and shade, The leaves that sigh, the bird that sings Seem one ambrosial chain of things, One happy whole, where they are parts. It is the fragrance of their hearts That the rose breathes: the water's sound Answers a feeling near, profound, And flashing, eddying fast and bright It leaps with their own heart's delight. Those spheres of solemn light on high Shine but in glorious sympathy, And heaven seems for no other end Spread there, but over them to bend. Theirs is the pomp, theirs is the power Of Nature in this sovereign hour. For them the balmy woodlands show Their virgin wealth: the hyacinths grow For them, for them the nightingale Tells all her rich melodious tale. Earth seems one flowery empire green And they its happy king and queen.