Botanical Gardens

He follows me no more, I said, nor stands     Beside me. And I wake these later days     In an April mood, a wonder light and free.     The vision is gone, but gone the constant pain     Of constant thought. I see dawn from my hill,     And watch the lights which fingers from the waters     Twine from the sun or moon. Or look across     The waste of bays and marshes to the woods,     Under the prism colors of the air,     Held in a vacuum silence, where the clouds,     Like cyclop hoods are tossed against the sky     In terrible glory.             And earth charmed I lie     Before the staring sphinx whose musing face     Is this Egyptian heaven, and whose eyes     Are separate clouds of gold, whose pedestal     Is earth, whose silken sheathed claws     No longer toy with me, even while I stroke them:     Since I have ceased to tease her.             Then behold     A breeze is blown out of a world becalmed,     And as I see the multitudinous leaves     Fluttered against the water and the light,     And see this light unveil itself, reveal     An inner light, a Presence, Secret splendor,     I clap hands over eyes, for the earth reels;     And I have fears of dieties shown or spun     From nothingness. But when I look again     The earth has stayed itself, I see the lake,     The leaves, the light of the sun, the cyclop hoods     Of thunder heads, yet feel upon my arm     A hand I know, and hear a voice I know -     He has returned and brought with him the thought     And the old pain.          The voice says: "Leave the sphinx.     The garden waits your study fully grown."     And I arise and follow down a slope     To a lawn by the lake and an ancient seat of stone,     And near it a fountain's shattered rim enclosing     An Eros of light mood, whose sculptured smile     Consciously dimples for the unveiled pistil of love,     As he strokes with baby hand the slender arching     Neck of a swan. And here is a peristyle     Whose carven columns are pink as the long updrawn     Stalks of tulips bedded in April snow.     And sunk amid tiger lillies is the face     Of an Asian Aphrodite close to the seat     With feet of a Babylonian lion amid     This ruined garden of yellow daisies, poppies     And ruddy asphodel from Crete, it seems,     Though here is our western moon as white and thin     As an abalone shell hung under the boughs     Of an oak, that is mocked by the vastness of sky between     His boughs and the moon in this sky of afternoon. ...     We walk to the water's edge and here he shows me     Green scum, or stalks, or sedges, grasses, shrubs,     That yield to trees beyond the levels, where     The beech and oak have triumph; for along     This gradual growth from algae, reeds and grasses,     That builds the soil against the water's hands,     All things are fierce for place and garner life     From weaker things.         And then he shows me root stocks,     And Alpine willow, growths that sneak and crawl     Beneath the soil. Or as we leave the lake     And walk the forest I behold lianas,     Smilax or woodbine climbing round the trunks     Of giant trees that live and out of earth,     And out of air make strength and food and ask     No other help. And in this place I see     Spiral bryony, python of the vines     That coils and crushes; and that banyan tree     Whose spreading branches drop new roots to earth,     And lives afar from where the parent trunk     Has sunk its roots, so that the healthful sun     Is darkened: as a people might be darkened     By ignorance or want or tyranny,     Or dogma of a jungle hidden faith.     Why is it, think I, though I dare not speak,     That this should be to forests or to men;     That water fails, and light decreases, heat     Of God's air lessens, and the soil goes spent,     Till plants change leaves and stalks and seeds as well,     Or migrate from the olden places, go     In search of life, or if they cannot move     Die in the ruthless marches.         That is life, he said.     For even these, the giants scatter life     Into the maws of death. That towering tree     That for these hundred years has leafed itself,     And through its leaves out of the magic air     Drawn nutriment for annual girths, took root     Out of an acorn which good chance preserved,     While all its brother acorns cast to earth,     To make trees, by a parent tree now gone,     Were crushed, devoured, or strangled as they sprouted     Amid thick jealous growth wherein they fell.     All acorns but this one were lost.         Then he reads     My questioning thought and shows me yuccas, cactus     Whose thick leaves in the rainless places thrive.     And shows me leaves that must have rain, and roots     That must have water where the river flows.     And how the spirit of life, though turned or driven     This way or that beyond a course begun,     Cannot be stayed or quenched, but moves, conforms     To soil and sun, makes roots, or thickens leaves,     Or thins or re-adjusts them on the stem     To fashion forth itself, produce its kind.     Nor dies not, rests not, nor surrenders not,     Is only changed or buried, re-appears     As other forms of life.          We had walked through     A forest of sequoias, beeches, pines,     And ancient oaks where I could see the trace     Of willows, alders, ruined or devoured     By the great Titans.          At last     We reached my hill and sat and overlooked     The garden at our feet, even to the place     Of tiger lilies and of asphodel,     By now beneath the self-same moon, grown denser:     As where the wounded surface of the shell     Thickens its shimmering stuff in spiral coigns     Of the shell, so was the moon above the seat     Beside the Eros and the Aphrodite     Sunk amid yellow daisies and deep grass.     And here we sat and looked. And here my vision     Was over all we saw, but not a part     Of what we saw, for all we saw stood forth     As foreign to myself as something touched     To learn the thing it is.         I might have asked     Who owns this garden, for the thought arose     With my surprise, who owns this garden, who     Planted this garden, why and to what end,     And why this fight for place, for soil and sun     Water and air, and why this enmity     Between the things here planted, and between     Flying or crawling life and plants, and whence     The power that falls in one place but arises     Some other place; and why the unceasing growth     Of all these forms that only come to seed,     Then disappear to enrich the insatiate soil     Where the new seed falls? But silence kept me there     For wonder of the beauty which I saw,     Even while the faculty of external vision     Kept clear the garden separate from me,     Envisioned, seen as grasses, sedges, alders,     As forestry, as fields of wheat and corn,     As the vast theatre of unceasing life,     Moving to life and blind to all but life;     As places used, tried out, as if the gardener,     For his delight or use, or for an end     Of good or beauty made experiments     With seed or soils or crossings of the seed.     Even as peoples, epochs, did the garden     Lie to my vision, or as races crowding,     Absorbing, dispossessing, killing races,     Not only for a place to grow, but under     A stimulus of doctrine: as Mahomet,     Or Jesus, like a vital change of air,     Or artifice of culture, made the garden,     Which mortals call the world, grow in a way,     And overgrow the world as neither dreamed.     Who is the Gardener then? Or is there one     Beside the life within the plant, within     The python climbers, wandering sedges, root stalks,     Thorn bushes, night-shade, deadly saprophytes,     Goths, Vandals, Tartars, striving for more life,     And praying to the urge within as God,     The Gardener who lays out the garden, sprays     For insects which devour, keeps rich the soil     For those who pray and know the Gardener     As One who is without and over-sees? ...     But while in contemplation of the garden,     Whether from failing day or from departure     Of my own vision in the things it saw,     Bereft of penetrating thought I sank,     Became a part of what I saw and lost     The great solution.         As we sat in silence,     And coming night, what seemed the sinking moon,     Amid the yellow sedges by the lake     Began to twinkle, as a fire were blown -     And it was fire, the garden was afire,     As it were all the world had flamed with war.     And a wind came out of the bright heaven     And blew the flames, first through the ruined garden,     Then through the wood, the fields of wheat, at last     Nothing was left but waste and wreaths of smoke     Twisting toward the stars. And there he sat     Nor uttered aught, save when I sighed he said     "If it be comforting I promise you     Another spring shall come."             "And after that?"     "Another spring - that's all I know myself,     There shall be springs and springs!"