A closer harmony with that great scheme Which is the music of the universe. So as the cherubim of Heaven defend The realms of the unknown with flaming swords, Thence are we driven to the world which is Ours to be known through Art, who beckons us To excellence, and in her rarer moods Casts shadowy glances of serener lands, Where all the serious gods, removed from stress And interruption, build, as we conceive, In fellowship that knows not that reserve Which clouds the hearts of those who wish to live As they, in that large realm of perfect mind. THE GARDEN I do not like my garden, but I love The trees I planted and the flowers thereof. How does one choose his garden? O with eyes O’er which a passion or illusion lies. Perhaps it wakens memories of a lawn You knew before somewhere. Or you are drawn By an old urn, a little gate, a roof Which soars into a blue sky, clear, aloof. One buys a garden gladly. Even the worst Seems tolerable or beautiful at first. Their very faults give loving labor scope: One can correct, adorn; ’tis sweet to hope For beauty to emerge out of your toil, To build the walks and fertilize the soil. Before I knew my garden or awoke To its banality I set an oak At one end for a life-long husbandry, A white syringa and a lilac tree, Close to one side to hide a crumbling wall, Which was my neighbor’s, held in several Title and beyond my right to mend-- One cannot with an ancient time contend. Some houses shadowed me. I did not dream The sun would never look o’er them and gleam, Save at the earliest hour. So all the day One half my garden under twilight lay. Another soul had overlooked the shade: I found the boundaries of a bed he made For tulips. Well, I had a fresher trust And spent my heart upon this sterile dust. What thing will grow where never the sun shines? Vainly I planted flowering stalks and vines. What years to learn the soil! Why even weeds Look green and fresh. But if one concedes Salvia will flourish not, nor palest phlox One might have hope left for a row of box.