THERE is a garden enclosed In the high places, But never hath love reposed In its bowery spaces; And the cedars there like shadows O'er the moonlit champaign stand Till light like an angel's hand Touches Wild Eden. Who told me the name of the garden That lieth remote, apart, I know not, nor whence was the music That sang it into my heart; But just as the loud robin tosses His notes from the elm tops high, As the violets come in the mosses When south winds wake and sigh, So on my lips I found it, This name that is made my cry. There, under the stars and the dawns Of the virginal valleys, White lilies flood the low lawns And the rose lights the alleys; But never are heard there the voices That sweeten on lovers' lips, And the wild bee never sips Sweets of Wild Eden. But who hath shown me the vision Of the roses and lilies in ranks I would that I knew, that forever To him I might render thanks; For a maiden grows there in her blossom, In the place of her maidenhood, Nor knows how her virgin bosom Is stored with the giving of good, For the truth is hidden from her That of love is understood. No bird with his mate there hovers, Nor beside her has trilled or sung; No bird in the dewy covers Has built a nest for his young; And over the dark-leaved mountains The voice in the laurel sleeps; And the moon broods on the deeps Shut in Wild Eden. O Love, if thou in thy hiding Art he who above me stands, If thou givest wings to my spirit, If thou art my heart and my hands — Through the morn, through the noon, through the even That burns with thy planet of light, Through the moonlit space of heaven, Guide thou my flight Till, star-like on the dark garden, I fall in the night! Fly, song of my bosom, unto it Wherever the earth breathes spring; Though a thousand years were to rue it, Such a heart beats under thy wing, Thou shalt dive, thou shalt soar, thou shalt find it, And forever my life be blest, Such a heart beats in my breast — Fly to Wild Eden! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE LAWYERS KNOW TOO MUCH by CARL SANDBURG AN EPITAPH UPON HUSBAND AND WIFE WHO DIED AND WERE BURIED by RICHARD CRASHAW BETSY'S BATTLE FLAG by MINNA IRVING EVENING IN ENGLAND by FRANCIS LEDWIDGE PROTHALAMION by EDMUND SPENSER |