The Seed Shop

Muriel Stuart

 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


The Wondering Minstrels, poem #1840 · 7 April 2006

Poem selected by Martin DeMello

Fair use