Beyond this purple shadow glows My golden garden loud with bees, And windy grey and silver flows Along the slopes of olive trees. Before a sleeping flower uncurled, Before the early winds were born, I woke for joy in such a world, And with the linnets shared the morn. Remembering love, I woke and smiled, And heard the morning linnets sing, And sang for love, and they for wild Delight of song and sun and spring. V Surely a brightness moves with me, For José gazes long and sighs, Above the pages dim to see For ghosts of youth that brush his eyes. And gazing long, old Marta said: “Some new device has made thee fair, Yet have I often seen these red Pomegranate flowers against thy hair.” I would not have them understand The hidden thoughts that give me grace, Nor guess the lights that dreams have fanned, And read their shining in my face. But all my heart the Virgin knows. Before her eyes, so wise they were, I laid my secret like a rose: “Mother, I love!” I cried to her. VI I had no more imagined love Than dreams the moonflower of its blue. What sun that warmed its shielding glove,-- What long blind eve that gave it dew, Could tell that hueless folded thing Of shining texture silken-loomed, Or say what marveling birds would sing The morning that it thrilled and bloomed? Always it knew in groping thought Some end would come, some bloom must be, The blind fulfilment that it wrought Was strained from darkness restlessly; Till exquisite completion willed The answered bud, the dream put by, And left the flower all sunned, and stilled With sudden wonder of the sky. VII My eyes are level with the grass, And up and down each slender steep I watch its tiny people pass. The sun has lulled me half asleep. And all beneath my breath I sing ... This joy of mine is sweet to hold! Such treasure had the miser king Who brushed the very dew to gold. Deep in the sunny grass I lie And breathe the garden scents wind-driven, So happy that if I should die They could not comfort me with Heaven. PART III I One time I felt the sun in all my veins, And bloomed on crystal mornings, flower-wise, And mourned as roses sadden in long rains. What pain is this the summer noon denies? One time the hands of wind upon my hair Could heal me like a mother’s touch and kiss. When I could give my airy griefs to air I never knew so sharp a thorn as this. The joy of flower and wind and sighing bough-- It comes not back again for tears and rue. A year agone I had not sought as now, And found the sky a vault of empty blue. II