Poems (Hinxman)/The Garden of Reverie
THE GARDEN OF REVERIE.
Look downward o'er that tangled bank, Thou shalt behold a mournful scene,The triumph of a ruin rank Where hands of art and care have been:Ruin by tender charm ungraced, A shapeless, stagnant over-growth,Where Nature on her own wild waste Lies in dull luxury of sloth.Here, where the breezes rustle by,— Here, where the cheerful sunbeams play,—Sit down, and learn the history Of that lone Garden's palmy day. No gleam did e'er its shades rejoice From silken robe or brilliant flowers,It echoed not to Pleasure's voice, Nor took gay gifts from Summer hours:Yet royal eyes, with nicest choice, Had ordered all its walks and bowers,Had grouped the laurels, taught the pine And ilex where to strike their root,Where arbutus should dimly shine With clustered mockeries of fruit,And where the savine's spicy fan Upon the velvet turf should sweep;Had traced the pathway's mazy plan,Which round the jutting shrubberies ran To nooks of shade, as caverns deep,—Chilly and damp as cavern air, The cedar closing with the yew;Nor sunshine ever slanted there, Nor ever noon could dry the dew.And lawn, and path, and dim retreatWere strange to all exploring feet, Save of one dreamy, musing man,Who, high in birth, and rich in mind,Born to control and lead his kind,To lesser men the work resigned.His phantasy this shrine had wroughtThese dedicated haunts of Thought,Where he might bathe his soul at easeIn the still mist of reveries;And all that through the outer sense,The unconscious mind might influenceIn brooding shade and mossy lawn,And odours from the shrubberies drawn,Whose warm wealth steeped the atmosphere,As ministers were gathered here.
Within the lawn a narrow well, With waters cold, and clear, and black,Did in perpetual shadow dwell,— It gave the sky no pictures back; No golden fish therein did swim, Nor sportive beetles wheel and glide,Nor bubbles bead the lowest brim Of the stone steps that clove its side.All down the garden's circling steep The ivy hung her folds of green,And little springs essayed to creep, Half stifled, through the matted screen;And cheerless, lacking power to cheer, Grew here and there the pallid flowers,Sown thinly, and with choice severe, Meek strangers in the breezeless bowers.There only might the cistus frail Her sad imploring eye lift up,The azalea faint perfumes exhale, The bleached petunia drop her cup.
Far, far away arose the lark, Nor oft the cuckoo here would sing,Because the laurels stiff and dark Could tell but little of his Spring; And here the prince at pleasure nursed His colourless philosophies,That never into blossom burst, So much they lacked the air and skies,—The air and skies of common life, Its seasonable work and play,He deemed the elements of strife, Coarse food which turned the soul to clay.
But while he walks in dreaming mood, What meets his wandering eye betweenThe lighter background of the wood And the dark ivy's sunless green?A flash—a smile—a radiant face, With glowing cheek and auburn hair,Hangs o'er the brink of the lone place As tho' new-lighted from the air!One moment thro' the gazer sent The conquering thrill of those bright eyes,As o'er the verdant depths she bent A careless look of gay surprise. She rose,—a maiden-figure fair, A comely form of buoyant ease;The sunshine struck her burnished hair, Her gay robe fluttered on the breeze.From one round arm a basket hung, A sheaf of tools the other bore,A bugle at her waist was slung, A bunch of flowers her bosom wore.
"Stay, stay!" he cried, "descend, bright maid!"Teach rapture to this peaceful shade!"But while he spoke, she turned away, Between the stems he saw her wind,And as she went, her bounding lay Left its clear syllables behind:—
"Who follows me has health and hope, Who wins me, joy, and fame, and power;His orb shall gain a broader scope, And like a star benign, shall shower Glad influence o'er the earth abroad,And climb to heaven the noblest road."
It ceased; the ancient slumbrous spell Again upon the garden pressed;But not so soon the sudden swell Subsided in the Prince's breast,That thro' its width and depth was stirred, Obedient as the freshening bay,When from the open seas is heard The travelling wind upon its way.
The beauteous face no more appeared; But sometimes in the evening hush,Along the bank the lover heard A light, determined footstep brush;Or when, at noon, the breathless spell Did deepest on the garden brood,Her carol, like a silver bell, Would ring from out the upper wood,—
And livelier breezes woke the copse,And twinkled in the aspens' tops,And even the garden's heavy scentWas with a fresher current blent.What marvel if such lures constrained The lover to new feats at last?Scaled was the tangled rock, and gained The winding track by which she passed;The stems grew fewer where it ran, And soon the dwindling shade revealedThe trimmer works of busy man, In fold and fence and furrowed field,Beyond lay stretched an ample plain With work and motion all alive;With men, and barge, and loaded wain; All rich in forage for the hive:—The windmill on that breezy mound Spreads its grey arms to woo the air,The dripping axle plunges round In seething foam and thunder, there; The greedy foundry rears beneath The ore-veined hills its blackened mole,And slowly sends its purple breath Along their dim blue sides to roll:There, runs the brick-kiln's modest thatch, And there the quarry glistens white;There, lines of roof and window catch The westering sun in darts of light.
As one whom fairy hands have set In realms unnatural and uncouth,—As one whom icy winds have met, New-travelled from the balmy South,—So stood the Prince, his ardour sank, His dainty senses backward shrank:"What boots it, thither to pursue? "Could love," he sighed, "be planted there?Nay, rather let me seek to woo My Wonder to a kinder air! In sordid blight, or reckless frost, Love there must perish at its birth;Or, all its grace ethereal lost, Discoloured, trail along the earth."
A doubtful pause, a wistful sigh, A troubled glance across the plain,And with slow step and downward eye, He treads the woodland path again.The garden bowers once more receive Their musing, solitary lord,And Fancy's fingers there must weave The bliss which truth shall ne'er afford,Peopling still lawns and voiceless shade With visions of the stately maid.
Henceforth the record is a blank; No more of this vain love I know,—Or if she ceased to cross the bank,— Or he to gaze and sigh below; I know not if the idle pain, Still smouldering, vexed his passive breast,Or joined his musings' shadowy train, Ere long as shapeless as the rest.For them, their birth-hour never came, No pledges left his brooding mind,No deed gave person to his name, Or taught his presence to his kind:Like his mute dust his memory sleeps, And somewhere, in that waste of gloom,The cypress sheddings lie in heaps Upon his unremembered tomb.
June 2, 1853.