The Deserted Garden

A poem by Alan Seeger (1888-1916)

I know a village in a far-off land

Where from a sunny, mountain-girdled plain

With tinted walls a space on either hand

And fed by many an olive-darkened lane

The high-road mounts, and thence a silver band

Through vineyard slopes above and rolling grain,

Winds off to that dim corner of the skies

Where behind sunset hills a stately city lies.

Here, among trees whose overhanging shade

Strews petals on the little droves below,

Pattering townward in the morning weighed

With greens from many an upland garden-row,

Runs an old wall; long centuries have frayed

Its scalloped edge, and passers to and fro

Heard never from beyond its crumbling height

Sweet laughter ring at noon or plaintive song at night.

But here where little lizards bask and blink

The tendrils of the trumpet-vine have run,

At whose red bells the humming bird to drink

Stops oft before his garden feast is done;

And rose-geraniums, with that tender pink

That cloud-banks borrow from the setting sun,

Have covered part of this old wall, entwined

With fair plumbago, blue as evening heavens behind.

And crowning other parts the wild white rose

Rivals the honey-suckle with the bees.

Above the old abandoned orchard shows

And all within beneath the dense-set trees,

Tall and luxuriant the rank grass grows,

That settled in its wavy depth one sees

Grass melt in leaves, the mossy trunks between,

Down fading avenues of implicated green;

Wherein no lack of flowers the verdurous night

With stars and pearly nebula o’erlay;

Azalea-boughs half rosy and half white

Shine through the green and clustering apple-spray,

Such as the fairy-queen before her knight

Waved in old story, luring him away

Where round lost isles Hesperian billows break

Or towers loom up beneath the clear, translucent lake;

And under the deep grass blue hare-bells hide,

And myrtle plots with dew-fall ever wet,

Gay tiger-lilies flammulate and pied,

Sometime on pathway borders neatly set,

Now blossom through the brake on either side,

Where heliotrope and weedy mignonette,

With vines in bloom and flower-bearing trees,

Mingle their incense all to swell the perfumed breeze,

That sprung like Hermes from his natal cave

In some blue rampart of the curving West,

Comes up the valleys where green cornfields wave,

Ravels the cloud about the mountain crest,

Breathes on the lake till gentle ripples pave

Its placid floor; at length a long-loved guest,

He steals across this plot of pleasant ground,

Waking the vocal leaves to a sweet vernal sound.

Here many a day right gladly have I sped,

Content amid the wavy plumes to lie,

And through the woven branches overhead

Watch the white, ever-wandering clouds go by,

And soaring birds make their dissolving bed

Far in the azure depths of summer sky,

Or nearer that small huntsman of the air,

The fly-catcher, dart nimbly from his leafy lair;

Pillowed at case to hear the merry tune

Of mating warblers in the boughs above

And shrill cicadas whom the hottest noon

Keeps not from drowsy song; the mourning dove

Pours down the murmuring grove his plaintive croon

That like the voice of visionary love

Oft have I risen to seek through this green maze

(Even as my feet thread now the great world’s garden-ways);

And, parting tangled bushes as I passed

Down beechen allies beautiful and dim,

Perhaps by some deep-shaded pool at last

My feet would pause, where goldfish poise and swim,

And snowy callas’ velvet cups are massed

Around the mossy, fern-encircled brim.

Here, then, that magic summoning would cease,

Or sound far off again among the orchard trees.

And here where the blanched lilies of the vale

And violets and yellow star-flowers teem,

And pink and purple hyacinths exhale

Their heavy fume, once more to drowse and dream

My head would sink, from many an olden tale

Drawing imagination’s fervid theme,

Or haply peopling this enchanting spot

Only with fair creations of fantastic thought.

For oft I think, in years long since gone by,

That gentle hearts dwelt here and gentle hands

Stored all this bowery bliss to beautify

The paradise of some unsung romance;

Here, safe from all except the loved one’s eye,

‘Tis sweet to think white limbs were wont to glance,

Well pleased to wanton like the flowers and share

Their simple loveliness with the enamored air.

Thrice dear to them whose votive fingers decked

The altars of First Love were these green ways,

These lawns and verdurous brakes forever flecked

With the warm sunshine of midsummer days;

Oft where the long straight allies intersect

And marble seats surround the open space,

Where a tiled pool and sculptured fountain stand,

Hath Evening found them seated, silent, hand in hand.

When twilight deepened, in the gathering shade

Beneath that old titanic cypress row,

Whose sombre vault and towering colonnade

Dwarfed the enfolded forms that moved below,

Oft with close steps these happy lovers strayed,

Till down its darkening aisle the sunset glow

Grew less and patterning the garden floor

Faint flakes of filtering moonlight mantled more and more.

And the strange tempest that a touch imparts

Through the mid fibre of the molten frame,

When the sweet flesh in early youth asserts

Its heyday verve and little hints enflame,

Disturbed them as they walked; from their full hearts

Welled the soft word, and many a tender name

Strove on their lips as breast to breast they strained

And the deep joy they drank seemed never, never drained.

Love’s soul that is the depth of starry skies

Set in the splendor of one upturned face

To beam adorably through half-closed eyes;

Love’s body where the breadth of summer days

And all the beauty earth and air comprise

Come to the compass of an arm’s embrace,

To burn a moment on impassioned lips

And yield intemperate joy to quivering finger-tips,

They knew; and here where morning-glories cling

Round carven forms of carefullest artifice,

They made a bower where every outward thing

Should comment on the cause of their own bliss;

With flowers of liveliest hue encompassing

That flower that the beloved body is

That rose that for the banquet of Love’s bee

Has budded all the æons of past eternity.

But their choice seat was where the garden wall,

Crowning a little summit, far and near,

Looks over tufted treetops onto all

The pleasant outer country; rising here

From rustling foliage where cuckoos call

On summer evenings, stands a belvedere,

Buff-hued, of antique plaster, overrun

With flowering vines and weatherworn by rain and sun.

Still round the turrets of this antique tower

The bougainvillea hangs a crimson crown,

Wistaria-vines and clematis in flower,

Wreathing the lower surface further down,

Hide the old plaster in a very shower

Of motley blossoms like a broidered gown.

Outside, ascending from the garden grove,

A crumbling stairway winds to the one room above.

And whoso mounts by this dismantled stair

Finds the old pleasure-hall, long disarrayed,

Brick-tiled and raftered, and the walls foursquare

Ringed all about with a twofold arcade.

Backward dense branches intercept the glare

Of afternoon with eucalyptus shade;

Eastward the level valley-plains expand,

Sweet as a queen’s survey of her own Fairyland.

For through that frame the ivied arches make,

Wide tracts of sunny midland charm the eye,

Frequent with hamlet grove, and lucent lake

Where the blue hills’ inverted contours lie;

Far to the east where billowy mountains break

In surf of snow against a sapphire sky,

Huge thunderheads loom up behind the ranges,

Changing from gold to pink as deepening sunset changes;

And over plain and far sierra spread

The fulgent rays of fading afternoon,

Showing each utmost peak and watershed

All clarified, each tassel and festoon

Of floating cloud embroidered overhead,

Like lotus-leaves on bluest waters strewn,

Flushing with rose, while all breathes fresh and free

In peace and amplitude and bland tranquillity.

Dear were such evenings to this gentle pair;

Love’s tide that launched on with a blast too strong

Sweeps toward the foaming reef, the hidden snare,

Baffling with fond illusion’s siren-song,

Too faint, on idle shoals, to linger there

Far from Youth’s glowing dream, bore them along,

With purple sail and steered by seraph hands

To isles resplendent in the sunset of romance.

And out of this old house a flowery fane,

A bridal bower, a pearly pleasure-dome,

They built, and furnished it with gold and grain,

And bade all spirits of beauty hither come,

And wingéd Love to enter with his train

And bless their pillow, and in this his home

Make them his priests as Hero was of yore

In her sweet girlhood by the blue Dardanian shore.

Tree-ferns, therefore, and potted palms they brought,

Tripods and urns in rare and curious taste,

Polychrome chests and cabinets inwrought

With pearl and ivory etched and interlaced;

Pendant brocades with massive braid were caught,

And chain-slung, oriental lamps so placed

To light the lounger on some low divan,

Sunken in swelling down and silks from Hindustan.

And there was spread, upon the ample floors,

Work of the Levantine’s laborious loom,

Such as by Euxine or Ionian shores

Carpets the dim seraglio’s scented gloom.

Each morn renewed, the garden’s flowery stores

Blushed in fair vases, ochre and peach-bloom,

And little birds through wicker doors left wide

Flew in to trill a space from the green world outside.

And there was many a dainty attitude,

Bronze and eburnean. All but disarrayed,

Here in eternal doubt sweet Psyche stood

Fain of the bath’s delight, yet still afraid

Lest aught in that palatial solitude

Lurked of most menace to a helpless maid.

Therefore forever faltering she stands,

Nor yet the last loose fold slips rippling from her hands.

Close by upon a beryl column, clad

In the fresh flower of adolescent grace,

They set the dear Bithynian shepherd lad,

The nude Antinous. That gentle face,

Forever beautiful, forever sad,

Shows but one aspect, moon-like, to our gaze,

Yet Fancy pictures how those lips could smile

At revelries in Rome, and banquets on the Nile.

And there were shapes of Beauty myriads more,

Clustering their rosy bridal bed around,

Whose scented breadth a silken fabric wore

Broidered with peacock hues on creamiest ground,

Fit to have graced the barge that Cydnus bore

Or Venus’ bed in her enchanted mound,

While pillows swelled in stuffs of Orient dyes,

All broidered with strange fruits and birds of Paradise.

‘Twas such a bower as Youth has visions of,

Thither with one fair spirit to retire,

Lie upon rose-leaves, sleep and wake with Love

And feast on kisses to the heart’s desire;

Where by a casement opening on a grove,

Wide to the wood-winds and the sweet birds’ choir,

A girl might stand and gaze into green boughs,

Like Credhe at the window of her golden house.

Or most like Vivien, the enchanting fay,

Where with her friend, in the strange tower they planned,

She lies and dreams eternity away,

Above the treetops in Broceliande,

Sometimes at twilight when the woods are gray

And wolf-packs howl far out across the lande,

Waking to love, while up behind the trees

The large midsummer moon lifts-even so loved these.

For here, their pleasure was to come and sit

Oft when the sun sloped midway to the west,

Watching with sweet enjoyment interknit

The long light slant across the green earth’s breast,

And clouds upon the ranges opposite,

Rolled up into a gleaming thundercrest,

Topple and break and fall in purple rain,

And mist of summer showers trail out across the plain.

Whereon the shafts of ardent light, far-flung

Across the luminous azure overhead,

Ofttimes in arcs of transient beauty hung

The fragmentary rainbow’s green and red.

Joy it was here to love and to be young,

To watch the sun sink to his western bed,

And streaming back out of their flaming core

The vesperal aurora’s glorious banners soar.

Tinging each altitude of heaven in turn,

Those fiery rays would sweep. The cumuli

That peeped above the mountain-tops would burn

Carmine a space; the cirrus-whorls on high,

More delicate than sprays of maiden fern,

Streak with pale rose the peacock-breasted sky,

Then blanch. As water-lilies fold at night,

Sank back into themselves those plumes of fervid light.

And they would watch the first faint stars appear,

The blue East blend with the blue hills below,

As lovers when their shuddering bliss draws near

Into one pulse of fluid rapture grow.

New fragrance on the freshening atmosphere

Would steal with evening, and the sunset glow

Draw deeper down into the wondrous west

Round vales of Proserpine and islands of the blest.

So dusk would come and mingle lake and shore,

The snow-peaks fade to frosty, opaline,

To pearl the doméd clouds the mountains bore,

Where late the sun’s effulgent fire had been

Showing as darkness deepened more and more

The incandescent lightnings flare within,

And Night that furls the lily in the glen

And twines impatient arms would fall, and then—and then . . .

Sometimes the peasant, coming late from town

With empty panniers on his little drove

Past the old lookout when the Northern Crown

Glittered with Cygnus through the scented grove,

Would hear soft noise of lute-strings wafted down

And voices singing through the leaves above

Those songs that well from the warm heart that woos

At balconies in Merida or Vera Cruz.

And he would pause under the garden wall,

Caught in the spell of that voluptuous strain,

With all the sultry South in it, and all

Its importunity of love and pain;

And he would wait till the last passionate fall

Died on the night, and all was still again.

Then to his upland village wander home,

Marvelling whence that flood of elfin song might come.

O lyre that Love’s white holy hands caress,

Youth, from thy bosom welled their passionate lays

Sweet opportunity for happiness

So brief, so passing beautiful—O days,

When to the heart’s divine indulgences

All earth in smiling ministration pays

Thine was the source whose plenitude, past over,

What prize shall rest to pluck, what secret to discover!

The wake of color that follows her when May

Walks on the hills loose-haired and daisy-crowned,

The deep horizons of a summer’s day,

Fair cities, and the pleasures that abound

Where music calls, and crowds in bright array

Gather by night to find and to be found;

What were these worth or all delightful things

Without thine eyes to read their true interpretings!

For thee the mountains open glorious gates,

To thee white arms put out from orient skies,

Earth, like a jewelled bride for one she waits,

Decks but to be delicious in thine eyes,

Thou guest of honor for one day, whose fêtes

Eternity has travailed to devise;

Ah, grace them well in the brief hour they last!

Another’s turn prepares, another follows fast.

Yet not without one fond memorial

Let my sun set who found the world so fair!

Frail verse, when Time the singer’s coronal

Has rent, and stripped the rose-leaves from his hair,

Be thou my tablet on the temple wall!

Among the pious testimonials there,

Witness how sweetly on my heart as well

The miracles of dawn and starry evening fell!

Speak of one then who had the lust to feel,

And, from the hues that far horizons take,

And cloud and sunset, drank the wild appeal,

Too deep to live for aught but life’s sweet sake,

Whose only motive was the will to kneel

Where Beauty’s purest benediction spake,

Who only coveted what grove and field

And sunshine and green Earth and tender arms could yield—

A nympholept, through pleasant days and drear

Seeking his faultless adolescent dream,

A pilgrim down the paths that disappear

In mist and rainbows on the world’s extreme,

A helpless voyager who all too near

The mouth of Life’s fair flower-bordered stream,

Clutched at Love’s single respite in his need

More than the drowning swimmer clutches at a reed—

That coming one whose feet in other days

Shall bleed like mine for ever having, more

Than any purpose, felt the need to praise

And seek the angelic image to adore,

In love with Love, its wonderful, sweet ways

Counting what most makes life worth living for,

That so some relic may be his to see

How I loved these things too and they were dear to me.

I sometimes think a conscious happiness

Mantles through all the rose’s sentient vine

When summer winds with myriad calyces

Of bloom its clambering height incarnadine;

I sometimes think that cleaving lips, no less,

And limbs that crowned desires at length entwine

Are nerves through which that being drinks delight,

Whose frame is the green Earth robed round with day and night.

And such were theirs: the traveller without,

Pausing at night under the orchard trees,

Wondered and crossed himself in holy doubt,

For through their song and in the murmuring breeze

It seemed angelic choirs were all about

Mingling in universal harmonies,

As though, responsive to the chords they woke,

All Nature into sweet epithalamium broke.

And still they think a spirit haunts the place:

‘Tis said, when Night has drawn her jewelled pall

And through the branches twinkling fireflies trace

Their mimic constellations, if it fall

That one should see the moon rise through the lace

Of blossomy boughs above the garden wall,

That surely would he take great ill thereof

And famish in a fit of unexpressive love.

But this I know not, for what time the wain

Was loosened and the lily’s petal furled,

Then I would rise, climb the old wall again,

And pausing look forth on the sundown world,

Scan the wide reaches of the wondrous plain,

The hamlet sites where settling smoke lay curled,

The poplar-bordered roads, and far away

Fair snowpeaks colored with the sun’s last ray.

Waves of faint sound would pulsate from afar

Faint song and preludes of the summer night;

Deep in the cloudless west the evening star

Hung ‘twixt the orange and the emerald light;

From the dark vale where shades crepuscular

Dimmed the old grove-girt belfry glimmering white,

Throbbing, as gentlest breezes rose or fell,

Came the sweet invocation of the evening bell.

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