Poetry.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2552, 17 November 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

Poetry.

A FOKSAKEN GAKDEN. In a cnißti of the cliff between lowland and highland, At the sea-down's edge betweon windward and lee, . Walled round with rocks as an inland t island, W Tho ghost of a garden fronts the sea. A eirdle of brushwood and thorn encloses The steep square slope of tho blossomiess bed . , Where the weeds that grew green from tho graves of its roses Now lie dead. The fields fall southward, abrupt and To the low last edge of tho lone lone If n step should scund or a word be spoken, Would a ghost not lise at the strange guest's hand? . So long have the eray bare walks lain guestless Through branches and briers if a man make way, . , Ho shall find no life but the sea-wind s, restless Night and day. The dense hard passage is blind and stifled . . That crawls by ft track none turn to climb ... i To the strait waste place that the years have rifled , , , , Of all but tho thorns that are touched not of time. The thorns he spares when the rose is taken; ~ Tho rocks are left when ho wastes the \>lain. , . , The wind that wanders, the weeds wmclshaken, Theso remain. Not a flower to be prest of the foot that falls As the heart of a dead man the seed-plots aro dry ; , . From the thicket of thorns whence the nightingale calls not, Could she call, there were never a rose to Over 'th/'meadows that blossom and wither , , . „ Rings but the note of a seabird s song ; Only The sun and rain come hither All year long. The sun burns sere and tho rain dishevels One gaunt bleak blossom of scentless breath. Only the wind hero hovers and revels In a round where life seems barren as death. , , , , Here there was laughing of old, there was weeping, ... , Haply, of lovers none ever will know, Whose, eyes went seaward a hundred sleeping „ Years ago. Hjart steadfast in heart as they stood, "Look thither," Did ho whisper? " Look forth from the flowers to the sea ; Tor the foam-flowers endure when the roseblossoms wither, And men that love lightly may die—but we?" , , And the same wind sang and the same waves whitened, And ere ever the garden s last petals were shed , . In the lips that had whispered, tho eyes that had lightened, Love was dead. Or they loved their life through, and then went thither ? And were one to the end—but what end who knows ? Love deep as the sea as a rose must wither. As the rose-rod seaweed that mocks the Sha" thn d'ond take thought for the dead to love them? What love was ever as deep as tho grave ! They are loveless now as the grass above them, Or the grave. All are at one now, roses and lovers, Not known of the cliffs and the fields and Not a breath of tho time that has been hovers In the air now soft with tho summer to be. Not a breath shall there sweeten the seasons hereafter Of the flowers or the lovers that laugh now or weep, When as they that are free now of weeping and laughter We shall weep. Hero death may deal not again for ever ; Here change may come not till all change end. From the graves they have made they shall rise up never, Who have left nought living to ravage and rend. Earth, stones and thorns of the wild ground growing, "While tho sun and tho ram live these shall be; Till a last wind's breath upon all these blowing Roll the sea. Till the slow sea rise and the sheer cliff crumble, Till terrace and meadow the deep gulfs drink, Till the strength of tho waves of the high tides humble Tho fields that lessen, tho rocks that shrink, Here now in his triumph where all things falter, Stretched out on the spoils that his own hand spread, As a god self-slain on his own strange altar, Death lies dead. A. C. Swinburne.