Garden Gossip

A poem by Madison Julius Cawein

Thin, chisel-fine a cricket chipped
The crystal silence into sound;
And where the branches dreamed and dripped
A grasshopper its dagger stripped
And on the humming darkness ground.

A bat, against the gibbous moon,
Danced, implike, with its lone delight;
The glowworm scrawled a golden rune
Upon the dark; and, emerald-strewn,
The firefly hung with lamps the night.

The flowers said their beads in prayer,
Dew-syllables of sighed perfume;
Or talked of two, soft-standing there,
One like a gladiole, straight and fair,
And one like some rich poppy-bloom.

The mignonette and feverfew
Laid their pale brows together: - "See!"
One whispered: "Did their step thrill through
Your roots?" - "Like rain." - "I touched the two
And a new bud was born in me."

One rose said to another: - "Whose
Is this dim music? song, that parts
My crimson petals like the dews?"
"My blossom trembles with sweet news -
It is the love of two young hearts."