I watched to see if she would stay, What she would do,--and, oh, She looked as if she liked the way I let my garden grow!
She bent above my favorite mint With conscious garden grace, She smiled and smiled,--there was no hint Of sadness in her face;
She held her gown on either side, To let her slippers show, And up the walk she went with pride, The way great ladies go;
And where the wall is built in new, And is of ivy bare, She paused,--then opened and passed through A gate that once was there.
A wan-cheeked girl with faded eyes Came stumbling down the crowded car, Clutching her burden to her breast As though she held a star.
Roses, I swear it! Red and sweet And struggling from her pinched white hands, Roses ... like captured hostages From far and fairy lands!
The thunder of the rushing train Was like a hush.... The flower scent Breathed faintly on the stale, whirled air Like some dim sacrament--
I saw a garden stretching out And morning on it like a crown-- And o'er a bed of crimson bloom My mother ... stooping down.
_That we are mortals and on earth must dwell Thou knowest, Allah, and didst give us bread-- And remembering of our souls didst give us food of flowers-- Thy name be hallowed._
In the garden-close at Mezra, When the cactus was in flower, We sat apart together Through the languid noonday hour.
I was her Arab lover, (Of course it was all in play!) And I called her "Star-of-Twilight," And I called her "Dream-of-Day."
She--has she quite forgotten? Soothly, I do not know If ever she tenderly opens The volume of Long Ago.
But I--I can still remember Her lips like the cactus flower In the garden-close at Mezra At the languid noonday hour!
The scarlet flower, with never a sister-leaf, Stemless, springs from the edge of the Cactus-thorn: Thus from the rugged wounds of desperate grief A beautiful Thought, perfect and pure, is born.
Here where the sunlight Floodeth the garden, Where the pomegranate Reareth its glory Of gorgeous blossom; Where the oleanders Dream through the noontides; And, like surf o' the sea Round cliffs of basalt, The thick magnolias In billowy masses Front the sombre green of the ilexes: Here where the heat lies Pale blue in the hollows, Where blue are the shadows On the fronds of the cactus, Where pale blue the gleaming Of fir and cypress, With the cones upon them Amber or glowing with virgin gold: Here where the honey-flower Makes the heat fragrant, As though from the gardens Of Gulistan, Where the bulbul singeth Through a mist of roses A breath were borne: Here where the dream-flowers, The cream-white poppies Silently waver, And where the Scirocco, Faint in the hollows, Foldeth his soft white wings in the sunlight, And lieth sleeping Deep in the heart of A sea of white violets: Here, as the breath, as the soul of this beauty, Moveth in silence, and dreamlike, and slowly, White as a snow-drift in mountain-valleys When softly upon it the gold light lingers: White as the foam o' the sea that is driven O'er billows of azure agleam with sun-yellow: Cream-white and soft as the breasts of a girl, Moves the White Peacock, as though through the noontide A dream of the moonlight were real for a moment. Dim on the beautiful fan that he spreadeth, Foldeth and spreadeth abroad in the sunlight, Dim on the cream-white are blue adumbrations, Shadows so pale in their delicate blueness That visions they seem as of vanishing violets, The fragrant white violets veined with azure, Pale, pale as the breath of blue smoke in far woodlands. Here, as the breath, as the soul of this beauty, White as the cloud through the heats of the noontide Moves the White Peacock.