You stand on the path that leads to space,
Where star- and engine-flame would light your face.
Any moment now could take you there,
Bathwater boiling from your hair,
But stop! Turn to another path for now--
Run up to the places among the old trees,
And see, in the valleys spreading below,
The Lowlands and Villages laid out beneath
The savage high peaks, the hanging snow!
Put on a Sheewan cloak once more,
And slip behind the High City's doors!
Think in terms of wayside tea,
And have it with friends from places far--
Here's Byorneth, who led his friend to see
Places strange and standing stones!
See ancient carvings in tongues unknown,
The Highland woman who grew the leaf
That--No! Let them read if they do not know
The slave, the bear, the camp in the trees,
Tales of old times, the sound of the sea!

Muffle the knocker, bar the door,
And let us go to Arlinga once more!

In times long past were gardens splendid,
From the rooftops hanging down, and walked by kings,
And ladies strolled on mountain-terraced fields
Where fruit and blossom sweetened foreign air.
Below such heights were fields of fine tea,
Where sweating workers picked the leaves
For drinking in the midst of neighbor pool and fountain.
Tea is drunk in gardens, crystal water,
Some have wine, and in the summer tea is iced,
But here the drinking is of lovely odors, breezes.
The air is as the water, to infuse the leaves of books,
So this garden-air shall be a tea of tales.


How can chain-link fencing set a place apart?
For sounds come through, the roar of motors,
Voices far and high--and yet this place is other,
Set apart, secluded in the midst of traffic.
Trees watch over, clover carpets this bright spot,
With plots of flowers complementing plots of books!
And here kings walk as well, and queens,
Princes and princesses in their tiny, childish haste.
They're bearing stories! See here, there comes
The Amulet of Samarkand about a prince's neck!
Brave Achilles falls where that man reads,
The Bennets scheme a marriage in yon corner where she is!
Perhaps a scribbler struggles over stories new,
Her first grand effort at a wise and simple tale!
So the air is filled with pictures as they read,
And in these golden afternoons of summer, children play.


And so the poem changes, this poem wherein I stand,
For a garden is a poem--there, a rhythm of the tree and bench,
A complicated meter in the spacing of the tables,
A metaphor of pumpkin and of herb, three lines apart!
In such a garden might fair Helen have escaped the dread of Troy,
There a gunless soldier struck a truce with warring tribes,
There a dead Tyrannosaurus lies in Spinosaurus' grip!
Yonder there was Elrond's council in a time beyond recall,
And on this stage, see Brutus knifing Caesar first within that distant Globe!
If you listen, you can hear the engines of the spaceship we are on,
Churning out beyond the steel-lined garden,
And unfurling in the trees, the standard of the host of Alexander
Flutters up above where sit Joe Hardy, Chet and Frank.


But in winter, what becomes of these?
And is the garden truly gone until the spring?
The books were brought out into air, and came alive,
So where are garden-joys in times of glinting frost?
    Books are filled up with the summer,
    Taken in and put away,
    And opened up and read upon a bitter, snowy day,
    And so the summer is unleashed in spaces cramped with chill,
    And we sit in summer cheer upon a winter windowsill.