Come into my garden,
the Christ Child said to me.
Here is the lily for what’s past,
the rose for what’s to be.

Here is the emerald mound
where love lies till the day
all sleeping souls must rise and do
what the hardest scriptures say.

Here is the sapphire pool
from which the laughing river ran
all through Paradise, and by
the melancholy carnivals of man.

For every poison on the earth
here grows the remedy,
For every slaughtered soldier lad,
a purple-flowered tree.

Here I will croon your sleep awhile,
then teach you how to make
a firebrand for the morning’s,
a gold bird for the evening’s sake.