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1869–1935

The Garden

Edwin Arlington Robinson

There is a fenceless garden overgrown With buds and blossoms and all sorts of leaves; And once, among the roses and the sheaves, The Gardener and I were there alone.

He led me to the plot where I had thrown The fennel of my days on wasted ground, And in that riot of sad weeds I found The fruitage of a life that was my own.

My life! Ah, yes, there was my life, indeed! And there were all the lives of humankind; And they were like a book that I could read, Whose every leaf, miraculously signed,

Outrolled itself from Thought's eternal seed, Love-rooted in God's garden of the mind.

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The Garden · Edwin Arlington Robinson · Poetry Cove