Sorrow In A Garden

Here to this ancient garden

When wintry days had flown

I came, with comrade Sorrow

To dwell with her alone.

Within this sweet seclusion

Far from the world’s rude stare

What exquisite communings

Sorrow and I would share!

What banquets of remembrance,

What luxury of tears

With Sorrow in a garden

Through the rose-scented years.

But one day when she called me

I did not hear her voice;

I only heard the lilies

which sang, rejoice! rejoice!

For June was in the garden

And June was in my heart,

I had forgot pale Sorrow

And now we dwell apart.

But often in the twilight

When birds and gardens sleep

I feel her presence with me.

Her arms about me creep.

And when the ghost of summer

And the dead roses talk,

I hear her softly sobbing

Among the moon-lit walk.

I never can forget her

So intimate were we,

But when I walk my garden

She comes no more to me.

May Riley Smith

Yu/stan/kema