WE clutch our joys as children do their flowers; <br />We look at them, but scarce believe them ours, <br />Till our hot palms have smirched their colors rare <br />And crushed their dewy beauty unaware. <br />But the wise Gardener, whose they were, comes by <br />At hours when we expect not, and with eye <br />Mournful yet sweet, compassionate though stern, <br />Takes them. <br />Then in a moment we discern <br />By loss, what was possession, and, half-wild <br />With misery, cry out like angry child: <br />'O cruel! thus to snatch my posy fine!' <br />He answers tenderly, 'Not thine, but mine,' <br />And points to those stained fingers which do prove <br />Our fatal cherishing, our dangerous love; <br />At which we, chidden, a pale silence keep; <br />Yet evermore must weep, and weep, and weep. <br />So on through gloomy ways and thorny brakes, <br />Quiet and slow, our shrinking feet he takes <br />Let by the soilèd hand, which, laved in tears, <br />More and more clean beneath his sight appears. <br />At length the heavy eyes with patience shine-- <br />'I am content. Thou took'st but what was thine.' <br /> <br />And then he us his beauteous garden shows, <br />Where bountiful the Rose of Sharon grows:' <br />Where in the breezes opening spice-buds swell, <br />And the pomegranates yield a pleasant smell: <br />While to and fro peace-sandalled angels move <br />In the pure air that they--not we--call Love: <br />An air so rare and fine, our grosser breath <br />Cannot inhale till purified by death. <br />And thus we, struck with longing joy, adore, <br />And, satisfied, wait mute without the door, <br />Until the gracious Gardener maketh sign, <br />'Enter in peace. All this is mine--and thine.'<br /><br />Dinah Maria Mulock Craik<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/parables/
