Classic Poem

I like the people who keep shops,
Busy and cheerful folk with friendly faces.
They handle lovely things — bulbs, seed and flowers,
China and glass and gay-backed magazines,
Velvet and satin, foreign silks and laces.

One keeps a stall that"s good to see,
Of nuts and fruits the morning sunlight dapples,
With dewy green things fresh from country gardens,
Tomatoes, bloomy plums and figs in baskets,
Melons and pears and red or russet apples.

The iron-monger charms me, too,
With wholesome things of house and ground for selling,
Rakes, hoes and spades, tin ware and tacks and hammers,
And shining lamps that wait for kindling fingers,
A pleasant place for converse, good, clean-smelling.

To serve us seems their only aim,
Asking our wishes, quick to crave our pardon,
And yet I know in each of these shop people
There dwells a soul withdrawn from us, elusive,
The shop can never know — a secret garden.

How can we guess who see them so,
Behind their counters, writing down our orders,
The hidden glades of thought, the fair surprises
That lie without our reach, the blue horizons
Stretching for them beyond their peaceful borders?