IN AN OLD GARDEN 
BY CHARLES BUXTON GOING 
The garden beds are prim and square. 
Box-bordered, scenting all the air, 
And fruit-trees on espaliers crawl 
Around the high, old-fashioned wall. 
Some little Mistress, long ago, 
Set out each straightly ordered row; 
She watched the spicy pinks unfold, 
The hollyhocks and marigold; 
And standing in the poppy bed 
Is the old dial, where she read: 
“ Life is a Shadowe; soon ’t is Night. 
Looke thou to God, thy Sun of Light.” 
Ah me! how many, many years 
Since Death dried all her mourners’ tears. 
And mourners’ mourners, one by one, 
Passed from the “shadowe ” to the Sun! 
But here her flowers portray her yet, 
Demure and sweet as mignonette, 
Tripping, beneath the arch of limes, 
To tend her posy bed betimes. 
And where the sunlight lingers most, 
Musing, I sometimes think her ghost 
Breathes through the quiet paths, and dwells 
A moment by the foxglove bells. 
A dainty, gentle ghost, that treads 
Light as the air around the beds— 
Light as the fragrant breath that blows 
The falling petals of a rose. 
And when, although there is no breeze, 
A little whisper fills the trees 
And poppies bend their heads and stir— 
I think they know and welcome her. 
