The Garden by Moonlight

A black cat among roses,

Phlox, lilac-misted under a first-quarter moon,

The sweet smells of heliotrope and night-scented stock.

The garden is very still,   

It is dazed with moonlight,

Contented with perfume,

Dreaming the opium dreams of its folded poppies.

Firefly lights open and vanish   

High as the tip buds of the golden glow

Low as the sweet alyssum flowers at my feet.

Moon-shimmer on leaves and trellises,

Moon-spikes shafting through the snow ball bush.   

Only the little faces of the ladies’ delight are alert and staring,

Only the cat, padding between the roses,

Shakes a branch and breaks the chequered pattern

As water is broken by the falling of a leaf.

Then you come,

And you are quiet like the garden,

And white like the alyssum flowers,   

And beautiful as the silent sparks of the fireflies.

Ah, Beloved, do you see those orange lilies?

They knew my mother,

But who belonging to me will they know

When I am gone.