Explore "The Garden of Saint Rose" by Bliss Carman on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
This is a holy refuge, / The garden of Saint Rose, / A fragrant altar to that peace / The world no longer knows.
Below a solemn hillside, / Within the folding shade / Of overhanging beech and pine / Its walls and walks are laid.
Cool through the heat of summer, / Still as a sacred grove, / It has the rapt unworldly air / Of mystery and love.
All day before its outlook / The mist-blue mountains loom, / And in its trees at tranquil dusk / The early stars will bloom.
Down its enchanted borders / Glad ranks of color stand, / Like hosts of silent seraphim / Awaiting love's command.
Lovely in adoration / They wait in patient line, / Snow-white and purple and deep gold / About the rose-gold shrine.
And there they guard the silence, / While still from her recess / Through sun and shade Saint Rose looks down / In mellow loveliness.
She seems to say, "O stranger, / Behold how loving care / That gives its life for beauty's sake, / Makes everything more fair!
"Then praise the Lord of gardens / For tree and flower and vine, / And bless all gardeners who have wrought / A resting place like mine! "