The Song of the Garden-Toad

Down, down beneath the daisy beds,

O hear the cries of pain!

And moaning on the cinder-path

They're blind amid the rain.

Can murmurs of the worms arise

To higher hearts than mine?

I wonder if that gardener hears

Who made the mold all fine

And packed each gentle seedling down

So carefully in line?

I watched the red rose reaching up

To ask him if he heard

Those cries that stung the evening earth

Till all the rose-roots stirred.

She asked him if he felt the hate

That burned beneath them there.

She asked him if he heard the curse

Of worms in black despair.

He kissed the rose. What did it mean?

What of the rose's prayer?

Down, down where rain has never come

They fight in burning graves,

Bleeding and drinking blood

Within those venom-caves.

Blaspheming still the gardener's name,

They live and hate and go.

I wonder if the gardener heard

The rose that told him so?