Sheltered Garden

I have had enough.

I gasp for breath.

Every way ends, every road,

every foot-path leads at last

5

to the hill-crest—

then you retrace your steps,

or find the same slope on the other side,

precipitate.

I have had enough—

10

border-pinks, clove-pinks, wax-lilies,

herbs, sweet-cress.

O for some sharp swish of a branch—

there is no scent of resin

in this place,

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no taste of bark, of coarse weeds,

aromatic, astringent—

only border on border of scented pinks.

Have you seen fruit under cover

that wanted light—

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pears wadded in cloth,

protected from the frost,

melons, almost ripe,

smothered in straw?

Why not let the pears cling

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to the empty branch?

All your coaxing will only make

a bitter fruit—

let them cling, ripen of themselves,

test their own worth,

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nipped, shrivelled by the frost,

to fall at last but fair

with a russet coat.

Or the melon—

let it bleach yellow

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in the winter light,

even tart to the taste—

it is better to taste of frost—

the exquisite frost—

than of wadding and of dead grass.

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For this beauty,

beauty without strength,

chokes out life.

I want wind to break,

scatter these pink-stalks,

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snap off their spiced heads,

fling them about with dead leaves—

spread the paths with twigs,

limbs broken off,

trail great pine branches,

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hurled from some far wood

right across the melon-patch,

break pear and quince—

leave half-trees, torn, twisted

but showing the fight was valiant.

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O to blot out this garden

to forget, to find a new beauty

in some terrible

wind-tortured place.

—
H. D.

Sea Garden, 1916