Leslie Nelson Jennings

GARDENS there were, and faces clear as agate,

And words I have forgotten how to speak.

A thousand people pass … I have forgotten

The things I might have said, the things I seek.

Roses there were—a very sea of roses;

Zithers, the sudden drawing of a breath,

And something passionate throbbing in the moonlight—

Can we remember passion after death?

Gardens there were, and something that was hidden

Deeper than water coursing in the earth …

Beauty had filled my open hands with silver …

There is a death made manifest in birth!

Roses there were … In many a clear dusk sweetened

With frost, or washed with some quick gust of rain,

I have smelled roses, and the old, old longing

For those lost faces comes to me again.

Zithers and roses, and the words forgotten;

Faces that were as delicate as stone

Hewn from the hills of Greece … A thousand people

Pass me, and yet I know I am alone.