Serenade - a poem by John Fuller

This poem links in my mind with my post about the fear of death, 02:10:14; I hope Mr Fuller doesn't mind my reprinting in full his fine poem, which I found in The Spectator, 4th October 2014, page 24.


Come to the garden, that familiar place
Where life renews itself against all odds.
Untightening buds act out their memory,
And dying seems a momentray pause.

Our star that took an afternoon to sink
Hangs in reluctance from the darkening tree
Like an amused and philosophic eye
Penning his treatise of the out-of-doors.

We are the topics of his arguments,
Enduring his extemporised revisions.
We are reminded of our natural ends
And of our origins and of their laws.

The knotted plum has dared at last to bloom:
Its blossom has no other mind but yours.

The yellow spray will lean down just for you
And though its petals scatter, they are yours.

Twisted wistaria unfolds and falls:
Its violet is a passing thought of yours.

The carved magnolia tilts its head and lifts a cheek
That mimics the expressiveness of yours.

The visited and swooning clematis
Climbs like a conscious eagerness of yours.

Yours are the flowers dimmer than their air,
Whose perfume lingers like an old desire.

Come to the garden, where two glasses wait
And there's a chair beside another chair.
The liquid lifts and widens as it pours,
And evening has no other end but night.

                                      John Fuller