A Garden by the Sea
William Morris, 1870 |
1 I know a little garden-close, 2 Set thick with lily and red rose, 3 Where I would wander if I might 4 From dewy morn to dewy night, 5 And have one with me wandering. 6 And though within it no birds sing, 7 And though no pillared house is there, 8 And though the apple-boughs are bare 9 Of fruit and blossom, would to God 10 Her feet upon the green grass trod, 11 And I beheld them as before. 12 There comes a murmur from the shore, 13 And in the close two fair streams are, 14 Drawn from the purple hills afar, 15 Drawn down unto the restless sea: 16 Dark hills whose heath-bloom feeds no bee, 17 Dark shore no ship has ever seen, 18 Tormented by the billows green 19 Whose murmur comes unceasingly 20 Unto the place for which I cry. 21 For which I cry both day and night, 22 For which I let slip all delight, 23 Whereby I grow both deaf and blind, 24 Careless to win, unskilled to find, 25 And quick to lose what all men seek. 26 Yet tottering as I am and weak, 27 Still have I left a little breath 28 To seek within the jaws of death 29 An entrance to that happy place, 30 To seek the unforgotten face, 31 Once seen, once kissed, once reft from me 32 Anigh the murmuring of the sea. This poem appeared on pages 31 and 32 of A Book of Verse, published 1870. |
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