A Deserted Garden

A highroad white with the dust of May;
An old red wall, and an iron gate;
A scent of Spring-time: a blossomy spray,
Thrown over and bowed by the blossom's weight

An empty house, and a garden-ground
That no one tended! The flowering trees
Had grown half wild. With a revel of sound
The birds in flocks made merry at ease.

The gravelled pathways were blurred with green;
The flower-beds each into other had run;
'Twas all one ferment of colour and sheen,
And scent and song, in the glittering sun.

And yet the place had a rueful look
For lack of laughter and pattering feet;
The fruit-tree shadowed no maiden's book;
No greybeard dozed on the garden-seat.

Methought I saw, as I gazed within,
An idyl of youth with its bliss and pain —
The empty house of "what might have been "-
The garden of dreams that were dreamed in vain.