Sheltered Garden

Sea Garden (1916)

I have had enough.I gasp for breath.

Every way ends, every road,every foot-path leads at lastto the hill-crest—then you retrace your steps,or find the same slope on the other side,precipitate.

I have had enough—border-pinks, clove-pinks, wax-lilies,herbs, sweet-cress.

O for some sharp swish of a branch—there is no scent of resinin this place,no taste of bark, of coarse weeds,aromatic, astringent—only border on border of scented pinks.

Have you seen fruit under coverthat wanted light—pears wadded in cloth,protected from the frost,melons, almost ripe,smothered in straw?

Why not let the pears clingto the empty branch?All your coaxing will only makea bitter fruit—let them cling, ripen of themselves,test their own worth,nipped, shrivelled by the frost,to fall at last but fairWith a russet coat.

Or the melon—let it bleach yellowin the winter light,even tart to the taste—it is better to taste of frost—the exquisite frost—than of wadding and of dead grass.

For this beauty,beauty without strength,chokes out life.I want wind to break,scatter these pink-stalks,snap off their spiced heads,fling them about with dead leaves—spread the paths with twigs,limbs broken off,trail great pine branches,hurled from some far woodright across the melon-patch,break pear and quince—leave half-trees, torn, twistedbut showing the fight was valiant.

O to blot out this gardento forget, to find a new beautyin some terriblewind-tortured place.

from Sea Garden (1916)