The Garden

By Jones Very 1813–1880 Jones Very

I saw the spot where our first parents dwelt;

And yet it wore to me no face of change,

For while amid its fields and groves, I felt

As if I had not sinned, nor thought it strange;

My eye seemed but a part of every sight,

My ear heard music in each sound that rose;

Each sense forever found a new delight,

Such as the spirit’s vision only knows;

Each act some new and ever-varying joy

Did my Father’s love for me prepare;

To dress the spot my ever fresh employ,

And in the glorious whole with Him to share;

No more without the flaming gate to stray,

No more for sin’s dark stain the debt of death to pay.

Biography

Though Jones Very was a minor figure in Transcendentalist circles, his poetry and criticism were highly regarded by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Bronson Alcott, and the pioneering educator Elizabeth Palmer Peabody. His close study of Shakespeare led him to write almost exclusively in Shakespearian sonnets, and his sequences on religion and nature gained recognition for their graceful lyricism. However, Very’s intense religious devotion . . .

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