And precious beyond all,
A garden-place, a garden with a wall!
To the green earth! All bountiful to bless
Hearts sickening with excess.
To the green earth, whose blithe replenishments
Shall fresh the jaded sense!
To the green earth, the dust-corrupted soul
Returns to be made whole.
For now it comes indeed,
They will go forth, all they, to see a reed
So shaken by the wind.
Men are no longer blind
To aught, save human kind.

(_O mellowing August tree,
Bear yet awhile with me._)


IV

The wonder this. For some there are no trees;
Or in the trees no beauty and no mirth:--
Those dullest millions, pent
In life-long banishment
From all the gifts and creatures of the earth,
Shut in the inner darkness of the town;
Those blighted things you see,
But the Sun sees not, at its going down:--
Warped outcasts of some human forestry;
Blind victims of the blind,