Poems of Philip Henry Savage / Philip Henry Savage [electronic text]

XXVII

IN A GARDEN

SWEET, my Sweet, by the winding-water Sit and sing as the days go by. (What if the sounding sea had taught her Lust of life and the fear to die!)

Here in the circuit thou hast drawn Consult the mayflower and the dew; And peace attend thee on the lawn, Beneath a sky forever blue.

The green be grateful to thine eyes, The blue a benediction be; The waters bless thee where they rise; But look not downward to the sea.

A limpid source of water, silver Bubbling up through golden sand, Leads, ah! down to the rolling river, Down, ah, down! to the sounding strand.

There the waves on the shifting margent, Night and day with a rhythmic roar, Beat and batter the black and argent Reef and rock of the sullen shore.

Spring will rise with a broken wing, Crippled in leaf and bud and stem; The winding-water cease to sing, The dawn will drop her diadem,

When thou but once beyond the pale Hast learned to look, or dared to see The sunrise shattered in the gale, The brazen terror of the sea.

Rather, at rest in what is thine, Sip thou the honey as it flows, Nor lift thy wing above the line, A blind bee in a garden-close.