Behind a Wall
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own a solace shut within my heart,A garden full of many a quaint delightAnd warm with drowsy, poppied sunshine; bright,Flaming with lilies out of whose cups dartShining thingsWith powdered wings. Here terrace sinks to terrace, arbors closeThe ends of dreaming paths; a wanton windJostles the half-ripe pears, and then, unkind,Tumbles a-slumber in a pillar rose,With contentGrown indolent. By night my garden is o'erhung with gemsFixed in an onyx setting. FirefliesFlicker their lanterns in my dazzled eyes.In serried rows I guess the straight, stiff stemsOf hollyhocksAgainst the rocks. So far and still it is that, listening,I hear the flowers talking in the dawn;And where a sunken basin cuts the lawn,Cinctured with iris, pale and glistening,The sudden swishOf a waking fish. A Winter Ride Who shall declare the joy of the running!Who shall tell of the pleasures of flight!Springing and spurning the tufts of wild heather,Sweeping, wide-winged, through the blue dome of light.Everything mortal has moments immortal,Swift and God-gifted, immeasurably bright. So with the stretch of the white road before me,Shining snowcrystals rainbowed by the sun,Fields that are white, stained with long, cool, blue shadows,Strong with the strength of my horse as we run.Joy in the touch of the wind and the sunlight!Joy! With the vigorous earth I am one. A Coloured Print by Shokei It winds along the face of a cliffThis path which I long to explore,And over it dashes a waterfall,And the air is full of the roarAnd the thunderous voice of waters which sweepIn a silver torrent over some steep. It clears the path with a mighty boundAnd tumbles below and away,And the trees and the bushes which grow in the rocksAre wet with its jewelled spray;The air is misty and heavy with sound,And small, wet wildflowers star the ground. Oh! The dampness is very good to smell,And the path is soft to tread,And beyond the fall it winds up and on,While little streamlets threadTheir own meandering way down the hillEach singing its own little song, until I forget that 't is only a pictured path,And I hear the water and wind,And look through the mist, and strain my eyesTo see what there is behind;For it must lead to a happy land,This little path by a waterfall spanned.
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