Shut Out

• The door was shut. I looked between

  It's iron bars
• My garden, mine, beneath the sky
• Pied with all flowers bedewed and green:

  From bough to bough the song-birds crossed,

  From flower to flower the moths and bees;

  With all its nests and stately trees
• A shadowless spirit kept the gate
• He answered not.
• The spirit was silent; but he took

  Mortar and stone to build a wall
• He left no loophole great or small

  Through which my straining eyes might look
• So now I sit here quite alone

  Blinded with tears
• And good they are, but not the best;

  And dear they are, but not so dear.