Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, RETURN TO EDEN, by EDITH GRAHAM MIRICK


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

RETURN TO EDEN, by                    
First Line: Remembering how, through all the valiant woe
Last Line: Love, and her wisdom, only, have been ours.
Subject(s): Autumn; Eden; Love; Seasons; Wisdom; Fall


Remembering how, through all the valiant woe,
The stubborn toil, the bright and transient mirth,
Has shown that idyl of a long ago
When love, unmarred by wisdom, walled the earth,
I said: We shall return again to seek
The lucent aura of those April lanes
After the rutted wandering, and the bleak
Omen of winter in the garnered grains.

How gallantly we thought to dare the sword
An obdurate angel held against return,
Two prodigals before a haughty Lord,
Asking brief shelter in a darling bourne
Where, shriven in a fragrant Pentecost,
The sorry heart might find a kingdom lost.

We never dreamed to find the proud walls down,
The gate hung rusty from a rusted hinge,
The leafy rafters of the forest brown,
Stained with a treacherous and carmine tinge;
The flame gone dark which once blazed, beautiful,
From a fierce sword which barred an earlier bliss,
The blade webbed by the spider, lying dull,
The cold imperious angel fled like this.

Autumn lies over Eden. We have come
Seeking a far enchanted Spring, to find
That garden sunk in ruin, fallen dumb,
Which long has choired in coverts of the mind,
From all the fruit of whose remembered flowers,
Love, and her wisdom, only, have been ours.





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