| |
| THE GARDEN is very quiet to-night, | |
| The dusk has gone with the Evening Star, | |
| And out on the bay a lone ship light | |
| Makes a silver pathway over the bar | |
| Where the sea sings low. | 5 |
| |
| I follow the light with an earnest eye, | |
| Creeping along to the thick far-away, | |
| Until it fell in the depths of the deep, dark sky | |
| With the haunting dream of the dusk of day | |
| And its lovely glow. | 10 |
| |
| Long nights, long nights and the whisperings of new ones, | |
| Flame the line of the pathway down to the sea | |
| With the halo of new dreams and the hallow of old ones, | |
| And they bring magic light to my love reverie | |
| And a lover’s regret. | 15 |
| |
| Tender sorrow for loss of a soft murmured word, | |
| Tender measure of doubt in a faint, aching heart, | |
| Tender listening for wind-songs in the tree heights heard | |
| When you and I were of the dusks a part, | |
| Are with me yet. | 20 |
| |
| I pray for faith to the noble spirit of Space, | |
| I sound the cosmic depths for the measure of glory | |
| Which will bring to this earth the imperishable race | |
| Of whom Beauty dreamed in the soul-toned story | |
| The Prophets told. | 25 |
| |
| Silence and love and deep wonder of stars | |
| Dust-silver the heavens from west to east, | |
| From south to north, and in a maze of bars | |
| Invisible I wander far from the feast | |
| As night grows old. | 30 |
| |
| Half blind is my vision I know to the truth, | |
| My ears are half deaf to the voice of the tear | |
| That touches the silences as Autumn’s ruth | |
| Steals thru the dusks of each returning year | |
| A goodly friend. | 35 |
| |
| The Autumn, then Winter and wintertime’s grief! | |
| But the weight of the snow is the glistening gift | |
| Which loving brings to the rose and its leaf, | |
| For the days of the roses glow in the drift | |
| And never end. | 40 |
| |
| The moon has come. Wan and pallid is she. | |
| The spell of half memories, the touch of half tears, | |
| And the wounds of worn passions she brings to me | |
| With all the tremor of the far-off years | |
| And their mad wrong. | 45 |
| |
| Yet the garden is very quiet to-night, | |
| The dusk has long gone with the Evening Star, | |
| And out on the bay the moon’s wan light | |
| Lays a silver pathway beyond the bar, | |
| Dear heart, pale and long. | 50 |
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