Poems (Rossetti, 1901)/Shut Out

by Christina Georgina Rossetti

SHUT OUT.

THE door was shut I looked between
 Its iron bars; and saw it lie,
 My garden, mine, beneath the sky,
Pied with all flowers bedewed and green:

From bough to bough the song-birds crossed,
 From flower to flower the moths and bees;
 With all its nests and stately trees
It had been mine, and it was lost.

A shadowless spirit kept the gate,
 Blank and unchanging like the grave.
 I, peering through, said; "Let me have
Some buds to cheer my outcast state."

He answered not. "Or give me, then,
 But one small twig from shrub or tree,
 And bid my home remember me
Until I come to it again."

The spirit was silent; but he took
 Mortar and stone to build a wall;
 He left no loophole great or small
Through which my straining eyes might look:

So now I sit here quite alone
 Blinded with tears; nor grieve for that,
 For nought is left worth looking at
Since my delightful land is gone.

A violet bed is budding near,
 Wherein a lark has made her nest:
 And good they are, but not the best;
And dear they are, but not so dear.