The Garden

A MAN there was, of simple kind
Who to the Lord gave all his mind;

For naught he cared, naught cravèd he
But his Lord’s servant for to be,

And e’en his garden plot kept fair
Because, he said, the Lord walked there.

Of this his friends made many a jest
Yet he toiled on with heart at rest.

The years went by, — with head grown gray
Still he believed Christ passed that way.

Then came a time when he was left
Of loving wife and child bereft;

‘He will doubt now,’the scoffers said,
‘When wife and child and love are dead.’

But all their words he heeded not,
And tended still the garden plot.

At last himself lay at death’s door,
To love, believe, and work no more.

His pitying friends stood by his bed,
And this is what to them he said :

‘Oh, bury me not in a churchyard mound
But lay me in my garden ground;

From loving dust, it needs must be
That flowers will spring more fair to see,

And Christ will know, in my last sleep,
For Him I still the garden keep.’