For *** by Vita Sackville-West

        No eyes shall see the poems that I write
        For you; not even yours; but after long
        Forgetful years have passed on our delight
        Some hand may chance upon a dusty song

        Of those fond days when every spoken word
        Was sweet, and all the fleeting things unspoken
        Yet sweeter, and the music half unheard
        Murmured through forests as a charm unbroken.

        It is the plain and ordinary page
        Of two who loved, sole-spirited and clear.
        Will you, O stranger of another age,
        Not grant a human and compassionate tear
        To us, who each the other held so dear?
        A single tear fraternal, sadly shed,
        Since that which was so living, is so dead.

The Garden by Vita Sackville-West

        We owned a garden on a hill,
        We planted rose and daffodil,
        Flowers that English poets sing,
        And hoped for glory in the Spring.

        We planted yellow hollyhocks,
        And humble sweetly-smelling stocks,
        And columbine for carnival,
        And dreamt of Summer's festival.

        And Autumn not to be outdone
        As heiress of the summer sun,
        Should doubly wreathe her tawny head
        With poppies and with creepers red.

        We waited then for all to grow,
        We planted wallflowers in a row.
        And lavendar and borage blue,,
        Alas! we waited, I and you,
        But love was all that ever grew.

            Long Barn
            Summer, 1915

Trio by Vita Sackville-West

    So well she knew them both! yet as she came
    Into the room, and heard their speech
    Of tragic meshes knotted with her name,
    And saw them, foes, but meeting each with each
    Closer than friends, souls bared through enmity,
    Beneath their startled gaze she thought that she
    Broke as the stranger on their conference,
    And stole abashed from thence.