Story of Mrs. W-

My garden blossoms pink and white,
A place of decorous murmuring,
Where I am safe from August night
And cannot feel the knife of Spring.

And I may walk the pretty place
Before the curtsying hollyhocks
And laundered daisies, round of face-
Good little girls, in party frocks.

My trees are amiably arrayed
In pattern on the dappled sky,
And I may sit in filtered shade
And watch the tidy years go by.

And I may amble pleasantly
And hear my neighbors list their bones
And click my tongue in sympathy,
And count the cracks in paving-stones.

My door is grave in oaken strength,
The cool of linen calms my bed,
And there at night I stretch my length
And envy no one but the dead.