The Child and the Heart Bereft

MY garden, long time desolate,Were still of pleasure reft and bareBut for one single, lonely bloomThat would insist on flowering there.

A fragile thing, in that chill placeIt grew where other joys were not,Waxing a lovelier hope each day,—Albeit half tended, half forgot,—

Until with wild, resistless charmThat sorrow's very self doth cheat,It maketh of my desert drearA sunlit garden, fresh and sweet.