dots-menu
×

Home  »  Poetry: A Magazine of Verse  »  Grace Hazard Conkling

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

Symphony of a Mexican Garden

Grace Hazard Conkling

  • 1. THE GARDENPoco sostenuto in A major
  • The laving tide of inarticulate air.
  • Vivace in A major
  • The iris people dance.
  • 2. THE POOLAllegretto in A minor
  • Cool-hearted dim familiar of the doves.
  • 3. THE BIRDSPresto in F major
  • I keep a frequent tryst.
  • Presto meno assai
  • The blossom-powdered orange-tree.
  • 4. TO THE MOONAllegro con brio in A major
  • Moon that shone on Babylon.


  • TO MOZART

    What junipers are these, inlaid

    With flame of the pomegranate tree?

    The god of gardens must have made

    This still unrumored place for thee

    To rest from immortality,

    And dream within the splendid shade

    Some more elusive symphony

    Than orchestra has ever played.

    I.In A major
    Poco sostenuto

    The laving tide of inarticulate air

    Breaks here in flowers as the sea in foam,

    But with no satin lisp of failing wave:

    The odor-laden winds are very still.

    An unimagined music here exhales

    In upcurled petal, dreamy bud half-furled,

    And variations of thin vivid leaf:

    Symphonic beauty that some god forgot.

    If form could waken into lyric sound,

    This flock of irises like poising birds

    Would feel song at their slender feathered throats,

    And pour into a grey-winged aria

    Their wrinkled silver fingermarked with pearl;

    That flight of ivory roses high along

    The airy azure of the larkspur spires

    Would be a fugue to puzzle nightingales

    With tool-evasive rapture, phrase on phrase.

    Where the hibiscus flares would cymbals clash,

    And the black cypress like a deep bassoon

    Would hum a clouded amber melody.

    But all across the trudging ragged chords

    That are the tangled grasses in the heat,

    The mariposa lilies fluttering

    Like trills upon some archangelic flute.

    The roses and carnations and divine

    Small violets that voice the vanished god,

    There is a lure of passion-poignant tone

    Not flower-of-pomegranate—that finds the heart

    As stubborn oboes do—can breathe in air,

    Nor poppies, nor keen lime, nor orange-bloom.

    What zone of wonder in the ardent dusk

    Of trees that yearn and cannot understand,

    Vibrates as to the golden shepherd horn

    That stirs some great adagio with its cry

    And will not let it rest?
    O tender trees,

    Your orchid, like a shepherdess of dreams,

    Calls home her whitest dream from following

    Elusive laughter of the unmindful god!

    Vivace

    The iris people dance

    Like any nimble faun:

    To rhythmic radiance

    They foot it in the dawn.

    They dance and have no need

    Of crystal-dripping flute

    Or chuckling river-reed,—

    Their music hovers mute.

    The dawn-lights flutter by

    All noiseless, but they know!

    Such children of the sky

    Can hear the darkness go.

    But does the morning play

    Whatever they demand—

    Or amber-barred bourrée

    Or silver saraband?

    THE POOL

    II.In A major
    Allegretto

    Cool-hearted dim familiar of the doves,

    Thou coiled sweet water where they come to tell

    Their mellow legends and rehearse their loves,

    As what in April or in June befell

    And thou must hear of,—friend of Dryades

    Who lean to see where flower should be set

    To star the dusk of wreathed ivy braids,

    They have not left thy trees,

    Nor do tired fauns thy crystal kiss forget,

    Nor forest-nymphs astray from distant glades.

    Thou feelest with delight their showery feet

    Along thy mossy margin myrtle-starred,

    And thine the heart of wildness quick to beat

    At imprint of shy hoof upon thy sward:

    Yet who could know thee wild who art so cool,

    So heavenly-minded, templed in thy grove

    Of plumy cedar, larch and juniper?

    O strange ecstatic Pool,

    What unknown country art thou dreaming of,

    Or temple than this garden lovelier?

    Who made thy sky the silver side of leaves,

    And poised its orchid like a swan-white moon

    Whose disc of perfect pallor half deceives

    The mirror of thy limpid green lagoon,

    He loveth well thy ripple-feathered moods,

    Thy whims at dusk, thy rainbow look at dawn!

    Dream thou no more of vales Olympian:

    Where pale Olympus broods

    There were no orchid white as moon or swan,

    No sky of leaves, no garden-haunting Pan!

    THE BIRDS

    III.In F major
    Presto

    I keep a frequent tryst

    With whirr and shower of wings:

    Some inward melodist

    Interpreting all things

    Appoints the place, the hours.

    Dazzle and sense of flowers,

    Though not the least leaf stir,

    May mean a tanager:

    How rich the silence is until he sings!

    The smoke-tree’s cloudy white

    Has fire within its breast.

    What winged mere delight

    There hides as in a nest

    And fashions of its flame

    Music without a name?

    So might an opal sing

    If given thrilling wing,

    And voice for lyric wildness unexpressed.

    In grassy dimness thatched

    With tangled growing things,

    A troubadour rose-patched,

    With velvet-shadowed wings,

    Seeks a sustaining fly.

    Who else unseen goes by

    Quick-pattering through the hush?

    Some twilight-footed thrush

    Or finch intent on small adventurings?

    I have no time for gloom,

    For gloom what time have I?

    The orange is in bloom;

    Emerald parrots fly

    Out of the cypress-dusk;

    Morning is strange with musk.

    The wild canary now

    Jewels the lemon-bough,

    And mocking-birds laugh in the rose’s room.

    THE ORANGE TREE

    In D major
    Presto meno assai

    The blossom-powdered orange tree,

    For all her royal speechlessness,

    Out of a heart of ecstasy

    Is singing, singing, none the less!

    Light as a springing fountain, she

    Is spray above the wind-sleek turf:

    Dream-daughter of the moon’s white sea

    And sister to its showered surf!

    TO THE MOON

    IV.In A major
    Allegro con brio

    Moon that shone on Babylon,

    Searching out the gardens there,

    Could you find a fairer one

    Than this garden, anywhere?

    Did Damascus at her best

    Hide such beauty in her breast?

    When you flood with creamy light

    Vines that net the sombre pine,

    Turn the shadowed iris white,

    Summon cactus stars to shine,

    Do you free in silvered air

    Wistful spirits everywhere?

    Here they linger, there they pass,

    And forget their native heaven:

    Flit along the dewy grass

    Rare Vittoria, Sappho, even!

    And the hushed magnolia burns

    Incense in her gleaming urns.

    When the nightingale demands

    Word with Keats who answers him,

    Shakespeare listens—understands—

    Mindful of the cherubim;

    And the South Wind dreads to know

    Mozart gone as seraphs go.

    Moon of poets dead and gone,

    Moon to gods of music dear,

    Gardens they have looked upon

    Let them re-discover here:

    Rest—and dream a little space

    Of some heart-remembered place!