The Melody of Earth: An Anthology of Garden and Nature Poems From Present-Day Poets
General
The Melody of Earth: An Anthology of Garden and Nature Poems From Present-Day Poets
English poetry; Gardens -- Poetry; Nature in literature
The summer birds have vanished oversea,
But Memory's palace-courts are full of song;
There sings a nightingale for you and me,
And there a hidden lute plays all day long.
There are no roses in the garden now,
But Memory's garden grows each day more fair;
Sun, moon, and stars her orchard close endow,
And there bloom roses--roses everywhere.
ROSAMUND MARRIOTT WATSON
BALLADE OF THE DREAMLAND ROSE
Where the waves of burning cloud are rolled
On the further shore of the sunset sea,
In a land of wonder that none behold,
There blooms a rose on the Dreamland Tree
That stands in the Garden of Mystery
Where the River of Slumber softly flows;
And whenever a dream has come to be,
A petal falls from the Dreamland Rose.
In the heart of the tree, on a branch of gold,
A silvern bird sings endlessly
A mystic song that is ages old,
A mournful song in a minor key,
Full of the glamour of faery;
And whenever a dreamer's ears unclose
To the sound of that distant melody,
A petal falls from the Dreamland Rose.
Dreams and visions in hosts untold
Throng around on the moonlit lea:
Dreams of age that are calm and cold,
Dreams of youth that are fair and free--
Dark with a lone heart's agony,
Bright with a hope that no one knows--
And whenever a dream and a dream agree,
A petal falls from the Dreamland Rose.
ENVOI
Princess, you gaze in a reverie
Where the drowsy firelight redly glows;
Slowly you raise your eyes to me ...
A petal falls from the Dreamland Rose.
BRIAN HOOKER
THE FLOWERS OF JUNE
These flowers of June
The gates of memory unbar;
These flowers of June
Such old-time harmonies retune,
I fain would keep the gates ajar,
So full of sweet enchantment are
These flowers of June.
Was it the bloom of the laurel sprays,
That wakened remembrance of singing birds?
Or, was it the charm of remembered words,
That set my heart singing through somber days?
I longed for the summer-time, flower and tree;
And lo! the summer-time came with thee.
The bloom is no more, but the charm still stays.
JAMES TERRY WHITE
IN MEMORY'S GARDEN
There is a garden in the twilight lands
Of Memory, where troops of butterflies
Flutter adown the cypress paths, and bands
Of flowers mysterious droop their drowsy eyes.
There through the silken hush come footfalls faint
And hurried through the vague parterres, and sighs
Whispering of rapture or of sweet complaint
Like ceaseless parle of bees and butterflies.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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