There is an isle in an unfurrowed sea <br />That I wot of, whereon the whole year round <br />The apple-blossoms and the rosebuds be <br />In early blooming ; and a many sound <br />Of ten-stringed lute, and most mellifluous breath <br />Of silver flute, and mellow half-heard horn, <br />Making unmeasured music. Thither Death <br />Coming like Love, takes all things in the morn <br />Of tenderest life, and being a delicate god, <br />In his own garden takes each delicate thing <br />Unstained, unmellowed, immature, untrod, <br />Tremulous betwixt the summer and the spring : <br />The rosebud ere it come to be a rose, <br />The blossom ere it win to be a fruit, <br />The virginal snowdrop, and the dove that knows <br />Only one dove for lover ; all the loot <br />Of young soft things, and all the harvesting <br />Of unripe flowers. Never comes the moon <br />To matron fulness, here no child-bearing <br />Vexes desire, and the sun knows no noon. <br />But all the happy dwellers of that place <br />Are reckless children gotten on Delight <br />By Beauty that is thrall to Death ; no grace, <br />No natural sweet they lack, a chrysolite <br />Of perfect beauty each. No wisdom comes <br />To mar their early folly, no false laws <br />Man-made for man, no mouthing prudence numbs <br />Their green unthought, or gives their licence pause ; <br />Young animals, young flowers, they live and grow, <br />And die before their sweet emblossomed breath <br />Has learnt to sigh save like a lover's. Oh ! <br />How sweet is Youth, how delicate is Death !<br /><br />Lord Alfred Douglas<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-garden-of-death/
