Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke
Christina Georgina Rossetti (18301894)Shut Out
T
Its iron bars; and saw it lie,
My garden, mine, beneath the sky,
Pied with all flowers bedewed and green.
From flower to flower the moths and bees:
With all its nests and stately trees
It had been mine, and it was lost.
Blank and unchanging like the grave.
I, peering through, said: “Let me have
Some buds to cheer my outcast state.”
But one small twig from shrub or tree;
And bid my home remember me
Until I come to it again.”
Mortar and stone to build a wall;
He left no loophole great or small
Through which my straining eyes might look.
Blinded with tears; nor grieve for that,
For nought is left worth looking at
Since my delightful land is gone.
Wherein a lark has made her nest;
And good they are, but not the best;
And dear they are, but not so dear.