Elizabeth Barrett Browning - The Deserted Garden lyrics

I mind me in the days departed
How often underneath the sun
With childish bounds I used to run
To a garden long deserted

The beds and walks were vanish'd quite
And wheresoe'er had struck the spade
The greenest grasses Nature laid
To sanctify her right

I call'd the place my wilderness
For no one enter'd there but I
The sheep look'd in, the grass to espy
And pass'd it ne'ertheless

The trees were interwoven wild
And spread their boughs enough about
To keep both sheep and shepherd out
But not a happy child

Adventurous joy it was for me!


I crept beneath the boughs, and found
A circle smooth of mossy ground
Beneath a poplar-tree

Old garden rose-trees hedged it in
Bedropt with roses waxen-white
Well satisfied with dew and light
And careless to be seen
Long years ago, it might befall
When all the garden flowers were trim
The grave old gardener prided him
On these the most of all

Some Lady, stately overmuch
Here moving with a silken noise
Has blush'd beside them at the voice
That liken'd her to such

Or these, to make a diadem
She often may have pluck'd and twined
Half-smiling as it came to mind
That few would look at them

O, little thought that Lady proud
A child would watch her fair white rose
When buried lay her whiter brows
And silk was changed for shroud! -

Nor thought that gardener (full of scorns
For men unlearn'd and simple phrase)
A child would bring it all it's praise
By creeping through the thorns!

To me upon my low moss seat
Though never a dream the roses sent
Of science or love's compliment
I ween they smelt as sweet
It did not move my grief to see
The trace of human step departed:
Because the garden was deserted
The blither place for me!

Friends, blame me not! a narrow ken
Hath childhood 'twixt the sun and sward:
We draw the moral afterward -
We feel the gladness then

And gladdest hours for me did glide
In silence at the rose-tree wall:
A thrush made gladness musical
Upon the other side

Nor he nor I did e'er incline
To peck or pluck the blossoms white: -
How should I know but that they might
Lead lives as glad as mine?

To make my hermit-home complete
I brought clear water from the spring
Praised in it's own low murmuring
And cresses glossy wet

And so, I thought, my likeness grew
(Without the melancholy tale)
To 'gentle hermit of the dale, '
And Angelina too
For oft I read within my nook
Such minstrel stories till the breeze
Made sounds poetic in the trees
And then I shut the book

If I shut this wherein I write
I hear no more the wind athwart
Those trees, nor feel that childish heart
Delighting in delight

My childhood from my life is parted
My footstep from the moss which drew
Its fairy circle round: anew
The garden is deserted

Another thrush may there rehearse
The madrigals which sweetest are
No more for me! -myself afar
Do sing a sadder verse

Ah me! ah me! when erst I lay
In that child's-nest so greenly wrought
I laugh'd unto myself and thought
'The time will pass away'

And still I laugh'd, and did not fear
But that, whene'er was pass'd away
The childish time, some happier play
My womanhood would cheer

I knew the time would pass away
And yet, beside the rose-tree wall
Dear God, how seldom, if at all
Did I look up to pray!

The time is past: and now that grows
The cypress high among the trees
And I behold white sepulchres
As well as the white rose, -

When wiser, meeker thoughts are given
And I have learnt to lift my face
Reminded how earth's greenest place
The colour draws from heaven, -

It something saith for earthly pain
But more for heavenly promise free
That I who was, would shrink to be
That happy child again