IN AN OLD GARDEN
There are ghosts that haunt my gardens,
Spirits that walk gently, on quiet evenings,
When the light is soft, in the time of silences.
They are not vengeful ghosts, not fearful things,
Dumb with the memory of lusts and crimes;
They are the gentle dead, still loth to leave
The walks they loved in other times.
Sometimes, as I turn round, beneath the conifers,
I see a pale young lady, walking, slow,
With head down, clad in blue and green and white,
Past the narcissi in their nodding row,
And past the patch of hyacinths,
She walks in our box borders.
Her head is bent, her hair is loose,
And she lingers, stooping low,
To catch the fragrance of blue spruce,
That sweetened the garden, long ago.
No doubt she watched her love come and depart,
Blowing a kiss from the tall, creepered tower,
They must have walked these gardens heart in heart,
And now perpetuate the tender hour.
Sometimes I see them both, walking together,
In the change of season, in the showery weather,
Slowly, slowly, up the long border path,
And as they walk, grow older with each pace,
Till, ere they reach the gate into the meadow
They totter, and she leans on him: there is a shadow
Like the shade of trembling ferns, upon her face.
Philip Britts, 1939
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