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And left untended, how wild doth it grow,

That naive plot of memories bittersweet,

Where unborn palms and flowers in embryo

Once waited to emerge in balmy dreams –

Where life beyond all life coursed through the streams

Which made the fruits like hanging lamps to glow?

No blood nor breath in Eden now doth beat –

One body’s pulse, two lungs’ soft metronome –

And no ears list to birds in that near-silent home.

 

Now sparking sword doth haunt along the walls,

And rove the searchlight eyes of cherubim

To watch the edge of sleep where mortals fall,

And sure make that they drop to realms of sin:

Those gluey bogs of sorrow and chagrin,

Where to a dour despair they’ll stay in thrall.

No heart among the orchards is let in;

And I am left to gaze on ramparts tall

Where moan half-sleep’s sad winds, the doleful lifting squall.

 

One brooding night woke I upon a ground

Far from my bed, amid sunlight, alone:

I sat in midst of parterre none hath found –

Its shrubs close-trimmed, its greenswards neatly mown;

But tow’ring temple of bright breast-pert domes

Did perch upon a vast lawn upside-down,

Posed there in balance for some term unknown –

And fearing fane might fall by softest sound,

With steps nigh angel-soft crept I those domes around.

 

So too stood upturned stone tombs, fissureless,

And central spire high as that citadel

Nimrod ordained, and human pride did bless,

Abandoned was, then to corrosion fell.

Who sobbed within its shade, I could not tell,

But nearing that inverted tower, did guess

One of the seraphs was, for voice like bells

Explained: “E’er vainly do I seek to wrest

Some joy from melancholy, while drops weep to my chest.”

 

Then asked I of this saint: “What means thy gloom?

Even in paradise must cheeks be stained

By eyes which seep like salty brimming pools?

Canst thou not find an angel’s peace again?”

And seraph spoke: “Eden requires such pain,

As love demands a sadness e’er to loom

Above a lover’s head like unwept rain.

The pure, elusive heaven’s far removed –

Some sleep within a sleep, some room hid in a room.”

 

Then turned that one again to passioned tears;

And ’neath my feet, I saw the gath’ring drops 

Run in a creek, and pour to distant meres:

That was the holy stream, which roots doth sop

To nourish blushing fruits and bright’ning crops

On which do batten garden birds and deer,

And which the dreamer like a gard’ner lops

To eat in bowers of melancholy cheer –

In Eden bittersweet, while hour of waking nears.

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