Poems (Hardy)/In palo alto garden
IN PALO ALTO GARDEN
BROAD leaf and narrow leaf,Banner-leaf and arrow-leafWheel in the sun and sprinkleShadow and sun-spot, stem-streak and wrinkle,With gloom and with glow.
Palm and banana,Sequoia and canna,Rustle and whisper and shakeSheafage and spear-point, and breakLeafage and shadow, and makeMysterious word-hints that wakeMemory and feeling, enticing the thoughtTo a green world full of leaves, till 'tis caughtBy a trick of bud-bursting, or playOf a flowering sprayLike that of a place and a time far away,With the old tale of springtime,Yet with language and rhythm and rime,Beautiful, strange, and new.
Now the sun, a gold ship in the blue,Snaring the thought in his net, sweepsOut into spaces, off into deeps,Till the soul turns backward in terror and creepsInto old limits, looks for solace to earth:To something familiar of form and hue,—To star-eyed verbena that crawls,Like a child with head up in its mirth,Toward the bright spot of pansies;—to the roseleaf that fallsTo the ground, resting surety enough that the world Is tethered somehow, and cannot be lostIn the darkness of spaces, nor hurled,Ere the day of its doom,Out of the Hand that holds it, nor tossedInto the furnace where dead worlds glowRed hot, then turn to white ashes, and driftAcross the wide heaven, a dust or a gloomThat passes forgotten.That passes forgotten.Ho, little flower,Hast thou tethered me so?—me, unaware?Bright-spirited, earthborn, lead me not such a raceAs the sun leads. Keep to thy placePredestined; keep to thy blossoming thrift;Be a gay spot on the brown of the mould,Be an odor, a ground-wreath, bless thine hourContent with thine own proper dower.
Yonder beech, copper-leaved, symmetric, not overbold,But respecting its forbears among strangers, seemsOne kind of joy that Nature now knowsIn expressing serenity, strength, and repose;That linden, all a-honeyed, drones with beesFrom its skirts to its crown. Every gain it has plannedBy giving its thousands away out of hand,Till the hives overfill,—till the sweetness pervadesAll the lawn under-flowing this garden of trees.
What wonder is this, now? A dry stem of rose,Dead past all hope, yet bright with a bloom,—A chrysalis-miracle: wings and a spirit aliveOut of silence, and sleep, and the tomb.Touch tenderly, shadow; rock softly, wind,Till the folded wings, all a-tremble, unclose,Spreading like petals of roses that striveFrom the twists of the bud to be free. And I know Reason will say I have sinnedAgainst her, putting by what she thinks to be so,Having measured and proved. But it is and shall be,That thought for assurance will goBeyond fact, escaping from doubt to the emblem still;From emblem to Prototype; there, then,How fixed are the feet, how secure is the way!So, O my soul, why glance with a chillAt yon sepulcher, and why shadow the dayWith a question of When?
Sea-green and golden the evening sky glowsIn the west over purple-blue hills;Pale gray in the east, and a tint of roseThat satisfies and fillsAll the wistful spaces of the heart,Late and low streams the sunOver low field and vineyard; late and lowSing the thrush and the wren;And once more ere it be dark,Once more sings the larkTo his answering mate; one and oneTo the hedge the mottled guails run;And red and round above the bayThe full moon, rising, ends the day.The gray road glimmers; yonder is my way.