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William Morris
1834 -1896

GARDEN BY THE SEA

I KNOW a little garden-close,

Set thick with lily and red rose,

Where I would wander if I might

From dewy morn to dewy night,

And have one with me wandering.

 

And though within it no birds sing,

And though no pillared house is there,

And though the apple-boughs are bare

Of fruit and blossom, would to God

Her feet upon the green grass trod,

And I beheld them as before.

 

There comes a murmur from the shore,

And in the close two fair streams are,

Drawn from the purple hills afar,

Drawn down unto the restless sea:

Dark hills whose heath-bloom feeds no bee,

Dark shore no ship has ever seen,

Tormented by the billows green

 

Whose murmur comes unceasingly

Unto the place for which I cry.

For which I cry both day and night,

For which I let slip all delight,

Whereby I grow both deaf and blind,

Careless to win, unskilled to find,

And quick to lose what all men seek.

 

Yet tottering as I am and weak,

Still have I left a little breath

To seek within the jaws of death

An entrance to that happy place,

To seek the unforgotten face,

Once seen, once kissed, once reft from me

Anigh the murmuring of the sea.

William Morris

© 2000 Elena and Yacov Feldman