The dust is on my hurrying feet, the dust is in my eyes,
And far behind me in the vale that o'er the rough hill lies
There is a garden soft with dew and bright with butterflies.
There is a sweet, white maiden bed, a little crucifix,
Beyond a patch of weeded ground where the the phlox and daisies mix,
And in the spring bean blossoms curl about their rigid sticks.
The window swings wide through the day; it looks towards the hills,
The mignonette all big with bees, the room with incense fills,
Sometimes a blundering moth lights on the pillows virgin frills.
Oh! If a man can judge of Hell or Heaven with mortal eyes,
I sometimes think that each for me in an old memory lies,
A homely garden, soft with dew and bright with butterflies!
First published in The Bulletin, 22 May 1913
