A Garden By The Sea

William Morris 1834 (Walthamstow) – 1896 (London)



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.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 03, 2023

1:03 min read
62

Quick analysis:

Scheme XXAAB BCCDDE EFFGGHH XXAAIIJ JKKLLGG
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,107
Words 212
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 5, 6, 7, 7, 7

William Morris

William Morris, Mayor of Galway, 1527-28. more…

All William Morris poems | William Morris Books

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