I
NOT only in the garden may be seen
The garden’s beauty. Many a tree and field
Beyond its bounds a touch of beauty yield,
Closing a vista with a natural screen
Of youthful verdure, or a deeper green
Where yon great ilex and its fellows shield
Another paradise that lies concealed
Behind their foliage, westward down the dene.
Behind those sombre boughs the sun will sink,
Leaving a legacy of mellow light,
Orange or yellow or a magic pink,
Which the dark tracery renders yet more bright
And lovely, so that one might almost think
The sky would fain protest against the night.
II
But not alone with green of many a shade
Doth Nature deck the background of the view.
Yon field is almost of a golden hue
With buttercups; yon hedge is overlaid
With hawthorn blossom like a white brocade:
Still to its name the ending month is true.
There blows pink may, and lilac almost blue,
And chestnuts still in countless plumes arrayed.
Garments of spring the summer still doth wear,
Hut soon his own apparel he will don,
Greens richer and more gorgeous, though less fair.
Unto full manhood grows the year anon,
And when the days of youthfulness have gone
He must not twine spring blossoms in his hair.
(Robert Henry Forster)
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Based on Topics: Night Poems, Light Poems, Nature Poems, Fairness Poems, Beauty Poems, Spring Poems, Summer Poems, Hair Poems, Garden PoemsBased on Keywords: ilex, youthfulness, dene