In the Japanese Garden

Someone is there, I know,

In the Japanese garden,

Where the sleepy idols sit,

Where the water tumbles green

Under leaf-hung boughs that lean

Wet from the spray of it.

Someone must be hiding there

On the jagged islands steep—

Someone I can almost see,

In the carved house peaked and gay;

One with a furtive, watchful way,

Under a twisted tree.

And when night comes down

To the Japanese garden,

And people have gone away,

Someone with a shy brown face

Creeps about from place to place,

His bamboo pipes to play.

Then I'll dream of being there

In the Japanese garden,

With the One-Whom-No-One-Sees,

With the orange fish that leap,

And the idols fast asleep,

By islands and twisted trees.