Story Of Mrs. W

My garden blossoms pink and white

A place of decorous murmuring

Where I am safe from August night

And cannot feel the knife of Spring



And I may walk the pretty place

Before the curtsying hollyhocks

And laundered daisies, round of face

Good little girls, in party frocks



My trees are amiably arrayed

In pattern on the dappled sky

And I may sit in filtered shade

And watch the tidy years go by



And I may amble pleasantly

And hear my neighbors list their bones

And click my tongue in sympathy

And count the cracks in paving-stones



My door is grave in oaken strength

The cool of linen calms my bed

And there at night I stretch my length

And envy no one but the dead