There was a garden, very strange and fair

         With all the roses summer never brings.

         The snowy blossom of immortal Springs

      Lighted its boughs, and I, even I, was there.

         There were new heavens, and the earth was new,

         And still I told my heart the dream was true.

      But when the sun stood still, and Time went out

         Like a blown candle—when she came to me

         Under the bride-veil of the blossomed tree,

      Chill through the garden blew the winds of doubt,

         And when, with starry eyes, and lips too near,

         She leaned to me, my heart knew what to fear.

      “It is no dream,” she said.  “What dream had stayed

         So long?  It is the blessed isle that lies

         Between the tides of twin eternities.

      It is our island; do not be afraid!”

         Then, then at last my heart was well deceived;

         I hid my eyes; I trembled and believed.

      Her real presence sanctified my faith,

         Her very voice my restless fears beguiled,

         And it was Life that clasped me when she smiled,

      But when she said “I love you!” it was Death.

         That, that at least could neither be nor seem—

         Oh, then, indeed, I knew it was a dream!

      Here’s a rose that blows for Chloe,

         Fair as ever a rose in June was,

      Now the garden’s silent, snowy,

         Where the burning summer noon was.

      In your garden’s summer glory

         One poor corner, shelved and shady,

      Told no rosy, radiant story,

         Grew no rose to grace its lady.

      What shuts sun out shuts out snow too;

         From his nook your secret lover

      Shows what slighted roses grow to

         When the rose you chose is over.

      I was picking raspberries, my head was in the canes,

      And he came behind and kissed me, and I smacked him for his pains.

      Says he, “You take it easy!  That ain’t the way to do!

      I love you hot as fire, my girl, and you know you know it too.

      So won’t you name the day?”

      But I said, “That I will not.”

      And I pushed him away,

      Out among the raspberries all on a summer day.

      And I says, “You ask in winter, if your love’s so hot,

      For it’s summer now, and sunny, and my hands is full,” says I,

      “With the fair by and by,

      And the village dance and all;

      And the turkey poults is small,

      And so’s the ducks and chicks,

      And the hay not yet in ricks,

      And the flower-show’ll be presently and hop-picking’s to come,

      And the fruiting and the harvest home,

      And my new white gown to make, and the jam all to be done.

      Can’t you leave a girl alone?

      Your love’s too hot for me!

      Can’t you leave a girl be

      Till the evenings do draw in,

      Till the leaves be getting thin,

      Till the fires be lighted early, and the curtains drawed for tea?

      That’s the time to do your courting, if you come a-courting me!”

      And he took it as I said it, an’ not as it was meant.

      And he went.

      The hay was stacked, the fruit was picked, the hops were dry and brown,

      And everything was garnered, and the year turned upside down,

      And the winter it come on, and the fires were early lit,

      And he’d never come anigh again, and all my life was sick.

      And I was cold alone, with nought to do but sit

      With my hands in my black lap, and hear the clock tick.

      For father, he lay dead

      With the candles at his head,

      And his coffin was that black I could see it through the wall;

      And I’d