My garden prospers not, unless I bring
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To the old garden god his offering,
Each day at dawn, and then at eve again;
In vain I water, and I weed in vain,
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Am vainly suppliant to the sullen seed,
Unless the god of gardens intercede.
Far down the flickering orchard is his shrine,
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With canopy of every wandering vine
Roofed in; and rippling poplars, all day long,
Bring him their delicately whispered song;
While, in his leafy chancel comes and goes
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Incense of honeysuckle and wild rose;
And the great candles of his altar are,
Each day, the morning and the evening star.
The thrush and blackbird are his choristers,
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And in his keeping all the little cares
Of little lives, and little frightened prayers.
To him the firstlings of the flowering spring
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I, with a heart devout and jocund, bring:
The infant snowdrop that the winter dares,
The crocus that in sudden flame up-rears,
The first shy violet, the first daffodil,
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Blowing his yellow trumpet on the hill;
Cherry and apple bloom in hand bring I,
And fairy almond boughs so quick to die.
Then, when the fury of the spring is spent,
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And bloom on fruit and berry is intent,
The first red apple sweetening on the bough
I bring, with happy heart and pious vow.
And, all the summer and the autumn through,
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First flowers and fruits I bring, in order due,
Till, with the yellow and the crimson leaves,
The purple grapes are come and golden sheaves.
Then I with ears of corn bedeck the shrine,
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And globèd clusters of the gladdening vine;
And, when the year grows to its sorrowing close,
Nor on the earth is left a single rose,
But the sad aster and the golden-rod
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Over the dying landscape dream and nod,
For his last garland weave I even these,
'Mid thinning bowers and sighing memories;
Till the first snow-flakes come a-fluttering down
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And make of their cold flowers his winter crown.