Here in a quiet and dusty room they lie,
 Faded as crumbled stone or shifting sand,
Forlorn as ashes, shrivelled, scentless, dry -
 Meadows and gardens running through my hand.

In this brown husk a dale of hawthorn dreams;
 A cedar in this narrow cell is thrust
That will drink deeply of a century's streams;
 These lilies shall make summer on my dust.

Here in their safe and simple house of death,
 Sealed in their shells, a million roses leap;
Here I can blow a garden with my breath,
 And in my hand a forest lies asleep.