Poem: “Easter Eve” By Anne Bethel Spencer

If ever a garden was Gethsemane,

With old tombs set high against

The crumpled olive tree and lichen,

This, my garden has been to me.

For such as I none other is so sweet:

Lacking old tombs, here stands my grief,

And certainly its ancient tree.

                                    Peace is here and in every season

                                    A quiet beauty.

                                    The sky is falling about me

                                    Evenly to the compass …

                                    What is sorrow but tenderness now

                                    In this earth-close frame of land and sky

                                    Falling constantly into horizons

                                    Of east and west, north and south;

                                    What is pain but happiness here

                                    Amid these green and wordless patterns,

                                    Indefinite texture of blade and leaf:

Beauty of an old, old tree,

Last comfort in Gethsemane.