I KNOW a little garden-close, <br />Set thick with lily and red rose, <br />Where I would wander if I might <br />From dewy morn to dewy night, <br />And have one with me wandering. <br /> <br />And though within it no birds sing, <br />And though no pillared house is there, <br />And though the apple-boughs are bare <br />Of fruit and blossom, would to God <br />Her feet upon the green grass trod, <br />And I beheld them as before. <br /> <br />There comes a murmur from the shore, <br />And in the close two fair streams are, <br />Drawn from the purple hills afar, <br />Drawn down unto the restless sea: <br />Dark hills whose heath-bloom feeds no bee, <br />Dark shore no ship has ever seen, <br />Tormented by the billows green <br /> <br />Whose murmur comes unceasingly <br />Unto the place for which I cry. <br />For which I cry both day and night, <br />For which I let slip all delight, <br />Whereby I grow both deaf and blind, <br />Careless to win, unskilled to find, <br />And quick to lose what all men seek. <br /> <br />Yet tottering as I am and weak, <br />Still have I left a little breath <br />To seek within the jaws of death <br />An entrance to that happy place, <br />To seek the unforgotten face, <br />Once seen, once kissed, once reft from me <br />Anigh the murmuring of the sea.<br /><br />William Morris<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-garden-by-the-sea/
