386. from A Forsaken Garden by Algernon Charles Swinburne
b"AC Swinburne read by Classic Poetry Aloud:\\nhttp://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/\\nGiving voice to the poetry of the past.\\n\\nfrom A Forsaken Garden\\nby Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837 \\u2013 1909)\\n\\nIn a coign of the cliff between lowland and highland,\\nAt the sea-down's edge between windward and lee,\\nWalled round with rocks as an inland island,\\nThe ghost of a garden fronts the sea.\\nA girdle of brushwood and thorn encloses\\nThe steep square slope of the blossomless bed\\nWhere the weeds that grew green from the graves of its roses\\nNow lie dead.\\n\\nThe fields fall southward, abrupt and broken,\\nTo the low last edge of the long lone land.\\nIf a step should sound or a word be spoken,\\nWould a ghost not rise at the strange guest's hand?\\nSo long have the grey bare walks lain guestless,\\nThrough branches and briers if a man make way,\\nHe shall find no life but the sea-wind's, restless\\nNight and day.\\n\\n\\n\\nFirst aired: 27 December 2007\\n\\nFor hundreds more poetry readings, visit the Classic Poetry Aloud index.\\n\\nReading \\xa9 Classic Poetry Aloud 2008"