Eight Harvard Poets/The Philosopher's Garden

THE PHILOSOPHER'S GARDEN

SOME strange and exquisite desire
Has thrilled this flowering almond tree
Whose branches shake so wistfully,
Else wherefore does it bloom in fire?
Why scatter pollen on the air,
Marry its pale buds each to each,
The year's unkindly tempests bear,
Or to the calm clear sunlight reach?

Yet I can give that hope no name,
Nor that divine emotion share,
For, though I see it flowering there,
Because our speech is not the same
The passionate secret must lie hid
Burdened with unexpressed delight,
Where none of all man's race can bid
It forth, or voice its beauty right.

There's nought in earth or heaven knows
That hope for which our being longs,
The stars are busied with their songs,
The universal springtime flows
From sun to sun in scorn of man,
Careless if he be quick or dead,
Or if this earth, as it began,
Be voiceless and untenanted.