Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, GARDEN OF THE HESPERIDES, by FREDERICK WILLIAM HENRY MYERS



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GARDEN OF THE HESPERIDES, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Would that a single sigh could fall
Last Line: When love world-wide has shown his mystery.
Alternate Author Name(s): Myers, Frederic
Subject(s): Gardens & Gardening; Hesperides (mythology)


WOULD that a single sigh could fall
From lips so still so long,
Float o'er the sea and tell thee all,
More inwardly than song!

A breath enchanted and intense
From faint impassioned hours,
Hesperian with an odorous sense
Of Orotava's flowers!

On hair and eyes 'twould sink and rise,
Soft on thy lips would die,
And whisper in the speech of sighs,
"Oh wise one! thou and I!

"Not winds alone, my love, my own,
Not only sea disparts,
But Life and Fate, the loves too late,
The twin divided hearts.

"And day by day," the sigh would say,
With scarce surviving breath,
"Near and more near, a Form, a Fear:—
Oh darling, is it Death?"

WHEN in late twilight slowly thou hast strayed
Thro' wet syringas and a black-green shade,
With one communing so, that each with each
Knew not the interludes of ebbing speech,
Marked not the gaze which thro' the dimness fell
On beauty in the daylight loved so well:—
Since in that hour the still souls held as nought
The body's beauty or brain's responsive thought,
Content to feel that life in life had grown
Separate no longer, but one life alone;
Ay, and they guessed thereby what life shall be
When Love world-wide has shown his mystery.





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