The Secret Garden

Within a walled enclosure, green with box,
I found a garden of all beauty made.
A world of flowers grew there; every shade
Of colour fell upon the curious rocks
That gave the garden an enchanted look.
Here blue and purple muscari unrolled
Their slender spires of blue and purple gold;
Here sweet alyssum the winds of morning shook;
Here tulips spread their gaudy chalices;
Here bright anemones, with coloured flames,
Flared up among the other blossoms’ names,
A glory and a wonder to the bees;
And here was every flower that ever grew,
And every colour that the rainbow knew.

But this was not enough. I found a gate,
And, entering, I was in another world.
Here the imagination might unfurl
Its wings, and fly beyond the common state
Of human life, and find a new estate
In the dominion of the sun, and be
A radiant and resplendent entity.
Here was the fairyland of fable; great
Green trees, like giants standing in the sun,
With trunks of silver and with leaves of gold,
Whose branches all mysterious stories told
Of fairies and their doings, every one.
Here were the pools where water-nymphs arise,
And mirrors for the stars to see their eyes.

This was the garden of the hidden things,
The secret garden of the hidden springs.

“The Secret Garden” was first published in The Sketch in 1926.