I have come back unto this spot most dear,
The garden green that only Beauty knew.
Where thick upon the boughs of yester-year
Bright flowers blew!
And now grey desolation haunts the place,
And bed and border dreary secrets hold,
Like some long-loved and well-remembered face
Grown tired and old.
Whither has fled the starry clustered green?
The canna's crimson flame, the dewy rose?
The gladiolus spikes that soared serene?
Alas! who knows?
Oh! silent garden, now the realm of ghosts,
Dark-stemmed, grey-cowled, with clutching finger-rings!
I see them standing there -- dim, huddled hosts
From bygone Springs!
And in the nights, adown each barren walk,
I hear their hands rattling like shaken bones
Above the dusty paths, and hear them talk
In whispering tones.
In whispering tones, brushed over with the sighs
Of wind that shuffles through the bleaching grass.
O, gods of rain, and round, white moons, and skies,
Can beauty pass?
Some night shall I awake to hear the song
Of rhythmic raindrops dancing on the sill,
And looking upward see, throng after throng,
The bare boughs spill
Their silver shakings all along the wind,
Until each in-curled leaf is brimmed with tears?
Oh, tell me I shall yet stoop down and find
The jonquil spears!
First published in The Australasian, 9 June 1923
