The Enclosed Garden

{This poem is in the style of “The Owl and the Pussycat” or “The Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat,” both in rhyme scheme and in the unlikely pairings.  This was obviously suggested to me, by my daughter Madelaine LeDew’s beautiful print.  Her own artwork was at least partially inspired, by a line from the the Song of Solomon 4:12 “A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.” (King  James Version.)

I hope you enjoy her artwork as much as I do. Thank you, for stopping by to read.}

The many-headed hydra held the whippet by the scruff.

The many-headed hydra told the whippet, “That’s enough!”

Enough, of racing to and fro.  Enough of sniffing ’round.

Enough of hunting high and low.  You’re not that kind of hound!”

The sleek and scrawny whippet told the hydra, “That’s enough!

Your tentacles reach everywhere, and steal my precious stuff!

One head is always watching, while the rest serenely sleep.

We’ll never be alone, with all the company you keep!”

“You long to leave this Eden,” hissed the hydra in reply.

“How could I dare to sleep a wink, or rest my tired eye,

When you despise this garden, with its crooked picket fence,

And gaze toward the horizon, thinking when you’ll leave, and whence.”

“Me, leave?” enjoined the whippet, gulping once, to ease the pain.

“I can’t escape your iron grip, no matter how I strain.

You’d keep me here, entangled, in this fragrant herbal bed,

Half-strangled to infinity–who wouldn’t run, instead?”

The nature of the hydra is to grasp and coil and squeeze.

The nature of the whippet is to gallop like the breeze.

How odd that we should cower in this bower so secluded–

My wife, my spouse, my husband–and so briefly, be deluded.

Copyright 2020 Andrea LeDew

If you enjoyed this rhyme and would like to learn how gardens figure in the lives of me and my family, please read The Secret Garden.