Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE GARDEN, by EMMA CATHERINE (MANLY) EMBURY


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE GARDEN, by                    
First Line: O what a world of beauty lies within
Last Line: With a most tremulous stillness.
Alternate Author Name(s): Ianthe
Subject(s): Beauty; Dreams; Eden; Gardens & Gardening; Youth; Nightmares


O what a world of beauty lies within
The narrow space on which mine eye now rests!
And yet how cold and tintless seem the words
That fain would picture to another's sense
Those tall, dark trees, whose young, fresh-budded leaves
Give out their music to the summer wind;
Or that green turf, with golden drops besprent,
As if Aurora, bending down to gaze
On scene so lovely, from her saffron crown
Had dropped some blossoms as she sped along!
What joyous language could be found to paint
Yon vine with its lithe tendrils dancing wild,
As if inebriate with th' inspiring blood
That courses through its old and sturdy heart?
What rainbow-tinted words could sketch the flowers
Which through the copse-like leafiness gleam out?
First in her beauty stands the festal rose,
Wearing with stately pride night's dewy pearls
Yet fresh upon her brow, as if to show
That none might woo her, save the evening-star,
Yet e'en now hiding in her heart of hearts
The bee that lives on sweetness.
At her feet,
With eye scarce lifted from earth's mossy bed,
The pansy wears her purple robe and crown,
As modestly as a young maiden queen,
Abashed at her own state.
The hoyden pink
(Like some wild beauty scorning fashion's garb),
In her exuberant loveliness, breaks loose
From the green bodice by Dame Nature laced,
And bares her fragrant bosom to the winds.
The honeysuckle, climbing high in air,
Swings her perfumed censer toward heaven,
Giving forth incense such as never breathed
From gemmed and golden chalice, or carved urn
In dim cathedral aisles.
All things around
Are redolent of sweetness and of beauty,
And, as beside the casement I recline,
Prisoned by sickness to the couch of pain,
Their mingled odors to my senses come,
Like the spice-scented breath of Indian isles
To the sick sailor, who, 'mid watery wastes,
Pines for one glimpse of the green-earth again,
And sees the cheating calenture arise
To mock his yearning dreams.
Yet thus to lie,
With such a glimpse of Eden spread before me,
And such a blue and lucid sky above,
As might have stretched its interposing veil
'Twixt sinless man and heaven's refulgent host,
When heaven seemed nearer to the earth than now,
And the Almighty talked amid the trees
With his last, best creation, -- thus to lie,
E'en though in bondage to bewildering pain,
And fettered by unnerving feebleness
To one small spot, is happiness so much
Beyond my poor deservings, that each breath
Goes forth like a thanksgiving from my lips.

Hark! merry voices now are on the breeze,
While glad young faces smile through leafy screens,
And where the arrowy sunbeams pierce their way
Like random shafts sent 'mid the clustering boughs,
The sheen of snowy robes is gleaming out;
Thus by her own pure brightness I can trace
The fleeting footsteps of that blessed one
Who to my glad youth like an angel came,
Folded her pinions in my happy home,
And called me "Mother."
To my o'erfraught soul
These images of all my home joys come
Like rose-leaves strewn upon a brimming cup,
And in its very fullness of content
My heart grows calm, while every pulse is hushed
With a most tremulous stillness.





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