Garden Gossip

Thin, chisel-fine a cricket chipped     The crystal silence into sound;     And where the branches dreamed and dripped     A grasshopper its dagger stripped     And on the humming darkness ground.     A bat, against the gibbous moon,     Danced, implike, with its lone delight;     The glowworm scrawled a golden rune     Upon the dark; and, emerald-strewn,     The firefly hung with lamps the night.     The flowers said their beads in prayer,     Dew-syllables of sighed perfume;     Or talked of two, soft-standing there,     One like a gladiole, straight and fair,     And one like some rich poppy-bloom.     The mignonette and feverfew     Laid their pale brows together: - "See!"     One whispered: "Did their step thrill through     Your roots?" - "Like rain." - "I touched the two     And a new bud was born in me."     One rose said to another: - "Whose     Is this dim music? song, that parts     My crimson petals like the dews?"     "My blossom trembles with sweet news -     It is the love of two young hearts."