Page:Poems Barrett.djvu/237

      On this couch I weakly lie on,
      While I count my memories,—
      Through the fingers which, still sighing
      I press closely on mine eyes,—
Clear as once beneath the sunshine, I behold the bower arise.

      Springs the linden-tree as greenly,
      Stroked with light adown its rind—
      And the ivy-leaves serenely
      Each in either intertwined,
And the rose-trees at the doorway, they have neither grown nor pined!

      From those overblown faint roses,
      Not a leaf appeareth shed,
      And that little bud discloses
      Not a thorn's-breadth more of red,
For the winters and the summers which have passed me overhead.

      And that music overfloweth,
      Sudden sweet, the sylvan eaves;
      Thrush or nightingale—who knoweth!
      Fay or Faunus—who believes?
But my heart still trembles in me, to the trembling of the leaves.

      Is the bower lost, then? "Who sayeth
      That the bower indeed is lost?
      Hark! my spirit in it prayeth
      Through the solstice and the frost,—
And the prayer preserves it greenly, to the last and uttermost—

      Till another open for me
      In God's Eden-land unknown,
      With an angel at the doorway,
      White with gazing at His Throne;
And a saint's voice in the palm-trees, singing—All is lost . . . and won!"