An Old-Fashioned Garden

Ellis Parker Butler 1869 (Muscatine) – 1937 (Williamsville)



Strange, is it not? She was making her garden,
Planting the old-fashioned flowers that day—
Bleeding-hearts tender and bachelors-buttons—
Spreading the seeds in the old-fashioned way.

Just in the old fashioned way, too, our quarrel
Grew until, angrily, she set me free—
Planting, indeed, bleeding hearts for the two of us,—
Ordaining bachelor’s buttons for me.

Envoi

Strange, was it not? But seeds planted in anger
Sour in the earth and, ere long, a decay
Withered the bleeding hearts, blighted the buttons,
And—we were wed—in the old-fashioned way.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

27 sec read
126

Quick analysis:

Scheme XABA XCXC XABA
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 559
Words 91
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4

Ellis Parker Butler

Ellis Parker Butler was an American author. more…

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