Classic Poem

If once you loved a garden
That's not your garden now —
Yellow crocus in the grass
And budding lilac bough.
April's a remembering time,
You will always know
Green splashed gold of daffodils
Where they used to grow.

If once you loved a garden
That love will stay with you.
In April there's a morning
When violets are blue.
You come upon them suddenly,
And suddenly you see
A green white mist has fallen
On the old pear tree.

Once I loved a garden
That's not my garden now.
In April I remember
The smell of earth, and how
Like folded hands in prayer,
Holding a scented heart,
The hyacinths come pushing
The loose, brown soil apart.

You can't forget a garden
Where you have planted seed,
Where you have watched the weather
And known the rose's need.
When you go away from it,
However long or far,
You leave your heart behind you
Where roots and tendrils are.