Explore "The Child in the Garden (Sonnets)" by Henry Van Dyke on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
When to the garden of untroubled thought / I came of late, and saw the open door, / And wished again to enter, and explore / The sweet, wild ways with stainless bloom inwrought, / And bowers of innocence with beauty fraught, / It seemed some purer voice must speak before / I dared to tread that garden loved of yore, / That Eden lost unknown and found unsought.
Then just within the gate I saw a child, -- / A stranger-child, yet to my heart most dear; / He held his hands to me, and softly smiled / With eyes that knew no shade of sin or fear: / "Come in," he said, "and play awhile with me; / "I am the little child you used to be."
January, 1903.