A house of unimagined beauty <br />Is set in parkland, cool and dark; <br />Gates with an arch; then meadows, hillocks, <br />And oats and woods beyond the park. <br /> <br />Here, with their crowns each other hiding, <br />Enormous linden trees engage <br />In dusky, quiet celebration <br />Of their two hundred years of age. <br /> <br />And underneath their vaulted branches, <br />Across the regularly drawn <br />Symmetric avenues, grow flowers <br />In flower-beds upon a lawn. <br /> <br />Beneath the trees, on sandy pathways, <br />Not one bright spot relieves the dark, <br />Save-like an opening in a tunnel- <br />The distant entrance of the park. <br /> <br />But now the blossom-time is starting, <br />The walled-in linden trees reveal <br />And spread about within their shadow <br />Their irresistible appeal. <br /> <br />The visitors, in summer clothing, <br />While walking on the crunchy sand, <br />Breathe in unfathomable fragrance <br />Which only bees can understand. <br /> <br />This gripping scent is theme and subject, <br />Whereas-however well they look- <br />The flower-beds, the lawn, the garden, <br />Are but the cover of a book. <br /> <br />The clustered, wax-bespattered flowers <br />On massive trees, sedate and old, <br />Lit up by raindrops, burn and sparkle <br />Above the mansion they enfold.<br /><br />Boris Pasternak<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-linden-avenue/
