Caroling Dusk/To a Certain Lady, in Her Garden
TO A CERTAIN LADY, IN HER GARDEN
(A. S.)
Lady, my lady, come from out the garden,Clayfingered, dirtysmocked, and in my timeI too shall learn the quietness of Arden,Knowledge so long a stranger to my rhyme.
What were more fitting than your springtime task?Here, close engirdled by your vines and flowersSurely there is no other grace to ask,No better cloister from the bickering hours.
A step beyond, the dingy streets beginWith all their farce, and silly tragedy—
But here, unmindful of the futile dinYou grow your flowers, far wiser certainly,
You and your garden sum the same to me,A sense of strange and momentary pleasure,And beauty snatched—oh, fragmentarilyPerhaps, yet who can boast of other seizure?
Oh, you have somehow robbed, I know not howThe secret of the loveliness of theseWhom you have served so long. Oh, shameless, nowYou flaunt the winnings of your thieveries.
Thus, I exclaim against you, profiteer. . . .For purpled evenings spent in pleasing toil,Should you have gained so easily the dearCapricious largesse of the miser soil?
Colorful living in a world grown dull,Quiet sufficiency in weakling days,Delicate happiness, more beautifulFor lighting up belittered, grimy ways—
Surely I think I shall remember this,You in your old, rough dress, bedaubed with clay,Your smudgy face parading happiness,Life’s puzzle solved. Perhaps, in turn, you may
One time, while clipping bushes, tending vines,(Making your brave, sly mock at dastard days,) Laugh gently at these trivial, truthful lines—And that will be sufficient for my praise.