Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1861-10-31
Written for the Worcester Spy.
MY LADY'S GARDEN

Fair it was and passing lovely,
Hidden away mid the bosby trees,
Shut from sight by their arohing branches,
That rustic softly with every breeze.
No grand woodland or peasance stately,
Lay that leaiy hedge within,
Only "A corner clipped from Eden
Ere its beauty was withered through sorrow and
sin.
There grew all manner of fragrant blossoms
Seeming the dewey morning air;
Thoughtful pansies, deep-blue yiolets,
Queenly roses, rich and fair,
Jasmine, heliotrope, rare coronations
Tiny wind-fowers wild and sweet;
Hiding away from our curious seeking,
Crushingto fragrance beneath our feet.
The earliest, lairest flowers of spring-time
Peeped from their coyers beneath the mould;
Tender crocuses, pure white lily-bels,
DafIodils waving their cups of gold,
Fragile snowdrops naughty tulips,
Columbine trailing over the ground;
Hyacinths, heavy-aden with perfume,
COwslips, daisies, clustering round
Then, when the lilacs had dropped and withered,
And summer, creeping with noiseless tread,
Had gently scattered the faded blossoms
over the grave where spring lay dead;
While the sun was scorching the upland hill-sides,
The garden always lay fresh and fair,
The glowing noon-tide sOftened its ardor,
Subdued into milder radiance there
So my lady walked through her garden,
N spring-time freshness and summer heat;
Under the rustling lime-trees shadows
Walked midst the roses and lilies sweet
All fair blossoms claimed her sister,
Fairer loyelier far than they,
As over the gaeensward, among the daisies,
Smiling softly, she took her way.
Here she fingered TO pluck violet,
Happy to lie in herembrace,
Happy, dropping in death, to gather
Added sweetness from her sweet face
Here she listened the robins warbling,
Or the sky-lark's carol at heavens gate;
All! one morning she found her pinions,
Mounted and left us desolate.
Now the garden stands deserted
Only the ghosts of joys long fled
Haunt its shadows and tread lis alleys,
Linking the living with the dead.
Now walk with lingering footsteps
Where ne fingered among the flowers;
Only these blossoms left, with the memory
OF those long-perished, blissful hours.
And if in the nighttime her spirit should hover
over the garden she loved of yore,
l should surely hear the lighted fiutter
OF the rustling dresses she always wore.
should surely catch the aintest cleaning
Other thin white muslin through the trees
As her shadow fitted across their shadows
That trembled with every passing breeze.
Or if she should walk through the paths of the gar
den,
Thridding again its deserted bowers,
should hear her football touching the gravel,
As she enderly bent DER the withered flowers
Or if she come not, wait in patience,
Wait till the day when, my labors done,
We two shall wander in fields eysian,
Far beyond the setting sun.
So shall we walk through statelier garden;
Paths and hedgerows paved with gold;
Brighter and fairer, and far more lovely
Than the fair, bright garden we knew of old
Fountains of everything water,
Fadeless roses that never die;
Lilies of Paradise, rich with the perfume
of prayers to the Holy One on high;
Under the Tree of Life, whose branches
Are set for the healing of sorrow and sin;
Through the golden gates of that beautiful garden
We two shall enter and walk therein
Walk forever in bliss immortal.
OF that endless day which knows no night;
Sunless and moonless, filled with the glory
OF God and the Lambs eternal light.