I tried to hold the courage of my ways
In that which may endure,
daring to find a world in a lost world,
a little world, a little perfect world,
with owlet vision in a blinding time,
and wrote and thought and spoke
these lines, these modest lines, almost demure,
what time the corn still stood in sheaves
what time the oak
renewed the million dapple of her leaves.
Yet shall the garden with the state of war
Aptly contrast, a miniature endeavour
To hold the graces and the courtesies
Against a horrid wilderness. The civil
Ever opposed the rude, as centuries’
Slow progress laboured forward, then the check,
the slow uphill climb again, the slide
back to the pit, the climb out of the pit,
advance, relapse, advance, relapse, advance,
regular as the measure of a dance;
so does the gardener in little way
maintain the bastion of his opposition
and by a symbol keep civility;
so does the brave man strive
to keep enjoyment in his breast alive
when all is dark and even in the heart
of beauty feeds the pallid worm of death.
