The poem
My garden hath a slender path With ivy overgrown, A secret place where once would pace A pot all alone; I see him now with fretted brow, Plunged deep in thought; And sometimes he would write maybe, And sometimes he would not.
A verse a day he used to say Keeps worry from the door; Without the stink of printer's ink How life would be a bore! And so from chime of breakfast time To supper he would beat The pathway flat, a mossy mat For his poetic feet.
He wrote, I'm told, of gods of old And mythologic men; Far better he had sung, maybe, Of plain folks now and then; With bitterness he would confess Too lofty was his aim. . . . And then with woe I saw him throw His poems to the flame.
He went away one bitter day When death was in the sky; No further word I ever heard Beyond his last goodbye. Did battle grim take toll of him In heaven-rocking wrath? Oh did he write in starry flight His name in flame on hell-brewed night? ... Well, there's my poet's path.