Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE GARDEN OF MORPHIA, by AMOS RUSSEL WELLS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE GARDEN OF MORPHIA, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: A loaded needle's plunge, a little wait
Last Line: My garden is a prison at the best.
Subject(s): Gardens & Gardening; Sleep


A loaded needle's plunge, a little wait,
I find myself beside a garden gate.

I enter, and it is a quiet place,
Full of an ancient and mysterious grace.

The trees are quaintly cut, the blossoms fair
Subdue themselves to this patrician air.

The level vistas lie in monotone,
And in the garden I am all alone.

No bird is here. The sleepy lizards crawl
Upon a gray and unrelenting wall.

The garden lies in vast embowered peace,
Where all my sorrows and my turmoil cease.

No pains are here, I left mine at the gate;
No throb of anguish mars this calm estate.

Here memory fails and all the passions die;
Here only quiet and oblivion lie.

A place of peace, a merciful retreat
For tortured body and for weary feet;

And yet my spirit pants to get away,
Escape the dull impassive wall of gray,

Leap from this formal and obscure domain
To friendly forest or exultant plain,

With trouble and with anguish -- what care I? --
Beneath a free and hero-hopeful sky.

Doomed to its merciful, unmanly rest,
My garden is a prison at the best.





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