John Garland

“I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat. ””

“Ages passed slowly, like a load of hay,As the flowers recited their linesAnd pike stirred at the bottom of the pond.The pen was cool to the touch.The staircase swept upwardThrough fragmented garlands, keeping the melancholyAlready distilled in letters of the alphabet.It would be time for winter now, its spun-sugarPalaces and also lines of careAt the mouth, pink smudges on the forehead and cheeks,The color once known as "ashes of roses.-"How many snakes and lizards shed their skinsFor time to be passing on like this,Sinking deeper in the sand as it wound towardThe conclusion. It had all been working so well and now,Well, it just kind of came apart in the handAs a change is voiced, sharpAs a fishhook in the throat, and decorative tears flowedPast us into a basin called infinity.There was no charge for anything, the gatesHad been left open intentionally.Don't follow, you can have whatever it is.And in some room someone examines his youth,Finds it dry and hollow, porous to the touch...O keep me with you, unless the outdoorsEmbraces both of us, unites us, unlessThe birdcatchers put away their twigs,The fishermen haul in their sleek empty netsAnd others become part of the immense crowdAround this bonfire, a situationThat has come to mean us to us, and the cryingIn the leaves is saved, the last silver drops.””

“Adam the while Waiting desirous her return, had wove Of choicest flowers a garland, to adorn Her tresses, and her rural labours crown As reapers oft are wont their harvest queen””