There is a fenceless garden overgrown With buds and blossoms and all sorts of leaves; And once, among the roses and the sheaves, The Gardener and I were there alone. He led me to the plot where I had thrown The fennel of my days on wasted ground, And in that riot of sad weeds I found The fruitage of a life that was my own. My life! Ah, yes, there was my life, indeed! And there were all the lives of humankind; And they were like a book that I could read, Whose every leaf, miraculously signed, Outrolled itself from Thought's eternal seed, Love-rooted in God's garden of the mind. 

  

       Cliff Klingenhagen     

      Cliff Klingenhagen had me in to dine With him one day; and after soup and meat, And all the other things there were to eat, Cliff took two glasses and filled one with wine And one with wormwood. Then, without a sign For me to choose at all, he took the draught Of bitterness himself, and lightly quaffed It off, and said the other one was mine. And when I asked him what the deuce he meant By doing that, he only looked at me And grinned, and said it was a way of his. And though I know the fellow, I have spent Long time a-wondering when I shall be As happy as Cliff Klingenhagen is. 

  

       Charles Carville's Eyes     

      A melancholy face Charles Carville had, But not so melancholy as it seemed, —      When once you knew him, — for his mouth redeemed His insufficient eyes, forever sad:      In them there was no life-glimpse, good or bad, —      Nor joy nor passion in them ever gleamed; His mouth was all of him that ever beamed, His eyes were sorry, but his mouth was glad. He never was a fellow that said much,      And half of what he did say was not heard By many of us:  we were out of touch With all his whims and all his theories Till he was dead, so those blank eyes of his Might speak them. Then we heard them, every word. 

  

       The Dead Village     

      Here there is death. But even here, they say, —      Here where the dull sun shines this afternoon As desolate as ever the dead moon Did glimmer on dead Sardis, — men were gay; And there were little children here to play, With small soft hands that once did 

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