The Seed Shop
Here in a quiet and dusty room they lie,
Faded as crumbled stone or shifting sand,
Forlorn as ashes, shrivelled, scentless, dry -
Meadows and gardens running through my hand.
In this brown husk a dale of hawthorn dreams;
A cedar in this narrow cell is thrust
That will drink deeply of a century's streams;
These lilies shall make summer on my dust.
Here in their safe and simple house of death,
Sealed in their shells, a million roses leap;
Here I can blow a garden with my breath,
And in my hand a forest lies asleep.
Commentary
Another random discovery from the Poet’s Corner…
(1922)
There’s nothing excitingly brilliant about this poem, but it gives me a certain quiet pleasure, both for the imagery and for the ‘feel’ of the verse itself. There is a soothing consistency in the rhythm and word choices, and some genuinely beautiful lines - it would be a lovely poem to print in an almanac, for instance, or in a collection of ‘fireside poetry’.
— Martin
Links
Wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muriel_Stuart
Poems by Muriel Stuart:
http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/books/stuart/stuart11.html