Behind a Wall

I own a solace shut within my heart,
 A garden full of many a quaint delight
 And warm with drowsy, poppied sunshine; bright,
Flaming with lilies out of whose cups dart
    Shining things
    With powdered wings.

Here terrace sinks to terrace, arbors close
 The ends of dreaming paths; a wanton wind
 Jostles the half-ripe pears, and then, unkind,
Tumbles a-slumber in a pillar rose,
    With content
    Grown indolent.

By night my garden is o'erhung with gems
 Fixed in an onyx setting.  Fireflies
 Flicker their lanterns in my dazzled eyes.
In serried rows I guess the straight, stiff stems
    Of hollyhocks
    Against the rocks.

So far and still it is that, listening,
 I hear the flowers talking in the dawn;
 And where a sunken basin cuts the lawn,
Cinctured with iris, pale and glistening,
    The sudden swish
    Of a waking fish.
Behind a Wall

by Amy Lowell, 1912
