The Haunted Garden

There a tattered marigold     And dead asters manifold,     Showed him where the garden old     Of time bloomed:     Briar and thistle overgrew     Corners where the rose once blew,     Where the phlox of every hue     Lay entombed.     Here a coreopsis flower     Pushed its disc above a bower,     Where once poured a starry shower,     Bronze and gold:     And a twisted hollyhock,     And the remnant of a stock,     Struggled up, 'mid burr and dock,     Through the mold.     Flower-pots, with mossy cloak,     Strewed a place beneath an oak,     Where the garden-bench lay broke     By the tree:     And he thought of her, who here     Sat with him but yesteryear;     Her, whose presence now seemed near     Stealthily.     And the garden seemed to look     For her coming. Petals shook     On the spot where, with her book,     Oft she sat.     Suddenly there blew a wind:     And across the garden blind,     Like a black thought in a mind,     Stole a cat.     Lean as hunger; like the shade     Of a dream; a ghost unlaid;     Through the weeds its way it made,     Gaunt and old:     Once 't was hers. He looked to see     If she followed to the tree.     Then recalled how long since she     Had been mold.