THE HAUNTED GARDEN

There a tattered marigold

And dead asters manifold,

Showed him where the garden old

Of time bloomed:

Briar and thistle overgrew

Corners where the rose once blew,

Where the phlox of every hue

Lay entombed.

Here a coreopsis flower

Pushed its disc above a bower,

Where once poured a starry shower,

Bronze and gold:

And a twisted hollyhock,

And the remnant of a stock,

Struggled up,‘ mid burr and dock,

Through the mold.

Flower-pots, with mossy cloak,

Strewed a place beneath an oak,

Where the garden-bench lay broke

By the tree:

And he thought of her, who here

Sat with him but yesteryear;

Her, whose presence now seemed near

Stealthily.

And the garden seemed to look

For her coming. Petals shook

On the spot where, with her book,

Oft she sat.—

Suddenly there blew a wind:

And across the garden blind,

Like a black thought in a mind,

Stole a cat.

Lean as hunger; like the shade

Of a dream; a ghost unlaid;

Through the weeds its way it made,

Gaunt and old:

Once‘ t was hers. He looked to see

If she followed to the tree.—

Then recalled how long since she

Had been mold.