THE GARDENS OF YESTERDAY
THE GARDEN
Old gardens have a language of their own,
And mine sweet speech to linger in the heart.
A goodly place it is and primly spaced,
With straight box-bordered paths and squares of bloom.
Bay-trees by rows of antique urns tell tales
Of one who loved the gardens Dante loved.
Magnolias edge the placid lily-pool
And flank the sagging seat, whence vista leads
To blaze of rhododendrons banked in green.
Azaleas by the scarlet quince flame up
Against the lustrous grape-vines trellised high
To pigeon-cote and old brick wall where hide
First snowdrops and the bravest violets.
A place of solitudes whose silences
Enfold the heart as an unquiet bird.
Gertrude Huntington McGiffert
OLD HOMES
Old homes among the hills! I love their gardens;
Their old rock fences, that our day inherits;
Their doors, round which the great trees stand like wardens;
Their paths, down which the shadows march like spirits;
Broad doors and paths that reach bird-haunted gardens.
I see them gray among their ancient acres,
Severe of front, their gables lichen-sprinkled,—
Like gentle-hearted, solitary Quakers,
Grave and religious, with kind faces wrinkled,—
Serene among their memory-hallowed acres.
Their gardens, banked with roses and with lilies—
Those sweet aristocrats of all the flowers—
Where Springtime mints her gold in daffodillies,
And Autumn coins her marigolds in showers,
And all the hours are toilless as the lilies.
I love their orchards where the gay woodpecker
Flits, flashing o'er you, like a wingèd jewel;
Their woods, whose floors of moss the squirrels checker
With half-hulled nuts; and where, in cool renewal,
The wild brooks laugh, and raps the red woodpecker.
Old homes! Old hearts! Upon my soul forever
Their peace and gladness lie like tears and laughter;
Like love they touch me, through the years that sever,
With simple faith; like friendship, draw me after
The dreamy patience that is theirs forever.
Madison Cawein
A PURITAN LADY'S GARDEN
This fairy pleasance in the brake—
This maze run wild of flower and vine—
Our fathers planted for the sake
Of eyes that longed for English gardens
Amid the virgin wastes of pine.
Here, by the broken, moldering wall,
Where still the tiger-lilies ride,
Once grew the crown imperial,
The tall blue larkspur, white Queen Margaret,
Prince's-feather, and mourning bride.
Beyond their pale, a humbler throng,
Grew Bouncing Bet and columbine;
The mountain fringe ran all along
The thick-set hedge of cinnamon roses,
And overhung the eglantine.
And Sunday flowers were here as well—
Adam-and-Eve within their hood,
The stately Canterbury bell,
And, oft in churches breathing fragrance,
The sweet and pungent southernwood.
When ships for England cleared the bay,
If long beside these reefs of foam
She stood, and watched them sail away,
It was her garden first enticed her
To turn, and call this country "home."
Sarah N. Cleghorn
THE OLD-FASHIONED GARDEN
Among the meadows of the countryside,
From city noise and tumult far away,
Where clover-blossoms spread their fragrance wide
And birds are warbling all the sunny day,
There is a spot which lovingly I prize,
For there a fair and sweet old-fashioned country garden lies.
The gray old mansion down beside the lane
Stands knee-deep in the fields that lie around
And scent the air with hay and ripening grain.
Behind the manse box-hedges mark the bound
And close the garden in, or nearly close,
For on beyond the hollyhocks an olden orchard grows.
So bright and lovely is the dear old place,
It seems as though the country's very heart
Were centered here, and that its antique grace
Must ever hold it from the world apart.
Immured it lies among the meadows deep,
Its flowery stillness beautiful and calm as softest sleep.
The morning-glories ripple o'er the hedge
And fleck its greenness with their tinted foam;
Sweet wilding things, up to the garden's edge
They love to wander from their meadow home,
To take what little pleasure here they may
Ere all their silken trumpets close before the warm midday.
The larkspur lifts on high its azure spires,
And up the arbor's lattices are rolled
The quaint nasturtium's many-colored fires;
The tall carnation's breast of faded gold
Is striped with many a faintly-flushing streak,
Pale as the tender tints that blush upon a baby's cheek.
The old sweet-rocket sheds its fine perfumes,
With golden stars the coreopsis flames,
And here are scores of sweet old-fashioned blooms,
Dear for the very fragrance of their names,—
Poppies and gilly flowers and four-o'clocks,
Cowslips and candytuft and heliotrope and hollyhocks,
Harebells and peonies and dragon-head,
Petunias, scarlet sage and bergamot,
Verbenas, ragged-robins, soft gold-thread,
The bright primrose and pale forget-me-not,
Wall-flowers and crocuses and columbines,
Narcissus, asters, hyacinths, and honeysuckle vines.
A sweet seclusion this of sun and shade,
A calm asylum from the busy world,
Where greed and restless care do ne'er invade,
Nor news of 'change and mart each morning hurled
Round half the globe; no noise of party feud
Disturbs this peaceful spot nor mars its perfect quietude.
But summer after summer comes and goes
And leaves the garden ever fresh and fair;
May brings the tulip, golden June the rose,
And August winds shake down the mellow pear.
Man blooms and blossoms, fades and disappears,—
But scarce a tribute pays the garden to the passing years.
Sweet is the odor of the warm, soft rain
In violet-days when spring opes her green heart;
And sweet the apple trees along the lane
Whose lovely blossoms all too soon depart;
And sweet the brimming dew that overfills
The golden chalices of all the trembling daffodils.
But sweeter far, in this old garden-close
To loiter 'mid the lovely old-time flowers,
To breathe the scent of lavender and rose,
And with old poets pass the peaceful hours.
Old gardens and old poets,—happy he
Whose quiet summer days are spent in such sweet company!
John Russell Hayes
A COLONIAL GARDEN
Down this pathway, through the shade,
Lightly tripped the dainty maid,
In her eyes the smile of June,
On her lips some old sweet tune.
Through yon ragged rows of box,
By that awkward clump of phlox,
To her favorite pansy bed
Like a ray of light, she sped.
Satin slippers trim and neat
Gleamed upon her slender feet;
Round her ankles, deftly tied,
Ribbons crossed from side to side,
Here her pinks, old fashioned, fair,
Breathed their fragrance on the air;
There her fluttering azure gown
Shook the poppy's petals down.
Here a rose, with fond caress,
Stooped to touch a truant tress
From her fillet struggling free,
Scorning its captivity.
There a bed of rue was set
With an edge of mignonette,
And the spicy bergamot
Meshed the frail forget-me-not.
Honeysuckles, hollyhocks,
Bachelor's buttons, four-o'clocks,
Marigolds and blue-eyed grass
Curtsied when the maid did pass.
Now the braggart weeds have spread
Through the paths she loved to tread,
And the creeping moss has grown
O'er yon shattered dial-stone.
Still beside the ruined walks
Some old flowers, on sturdy stalks,
Dream of her whose happy eyes
Roam the fields of paradise.
James B. Kenyon
IN MY MOTHER'S GARDEN
There were many flowers in my mother's garden,
Sword-leaved gladiolas, taller far than I,
Sticky-leaved petunias, pink and purple flaring,
Velvet-painted pansies smiling at the sky;
Scentless portulacas crowded down the borders,
White and scarlet-petalled, rose and satin-gold,
Clustered sweet alyssum, lacy-white and scented,
Sprays of gray-green lavender to keep 'til you were old.
In my mother's garden were green-leaved hiding-places,
Nooks between the lilacs—oh, a pleasant place to play!
Still my heart can hide there, still my eyes can dream it,
Though the long years lie between and I am far away;
When the world is hard now, when the city's clanging
Tires my eyes and tires my heart and dust lies everywhere,
I can dream the peace still of the soft wind's blowing,
I can be a child still and hide my heart from care.
Lord, if still that garden blossoms in the sunlight,
Grant that children laugh there now among its green and gold—
Grant that little hearts still hide its memoried sweetness,
Locking one bright dream away for light when they are old!
Margaret Widdemer
TO THE SWEETWILLIAM
I search the poet's honied lines,
And not in vain, for columbines;
And not in vain for other flowers
That sanctify the many bowers
Unsanctified by human souls.
See where the larkspur lifts among
The thousand blossoms finely sung,
Still blossoming in the fragrant scrolls!
Charity, eglantine, and rue
And love-in-a-mist are all in view,
With coloured cousins; but where are you,
Sweetwilliam?
The lily and the rose have books
Devoted to their lovely looks,
And wit has fallen in vital showers
Through England's most miraculous hours
To keep them fresh a thousand years.
The immortal library can show
The violet's well-thumbed folio
Stained tenderly by girls in tears.
The shelf where Genius stands in view
Has brier and daffodil and rue
And love-lies-bleeding; but not you,
Sweetwilliam.
Thus, if I seek the classic line
For marybuds, 'tis, Shakespeare, thine!
And ever is the primrose born
'Neath Goldsmith's overhanging thorn.
In Herrick's breastknot I can see
The apple-blossom, fresh and fair
As when he plucked and put it there,
Heedless of Time's anthology.
So flower by flower comes into view
Kept fadeless by the Olympian dew
For startled eyes; and yet not you,
Sweetwilliam.
Though gods of song have let you be,
Bloom in my little book for me.
Unwont to stoop or lean, you show
An undefeated heart, and grow
As pluckily as cedars. Heat
And cold, and winds that make
Tumbledown sallies, cannot shake
Your resolution to be sweet.
Then take this song, be it born to die
Ere yet the unwedded butterfly
Has glimpsed a darling in the sky,
Sweetwilliam!
Norman Gale
ROSE-GERANIUM
A pungent spray of rose-geranium—
A breath of the old life.
It brings up the little five-room cottage where I was born,
And where I grew through a smiling childhood.
The white-bearded grandfather sits in his mended rocking-chair,
His eyes far off, crooning "The Sweet By and By,"
Marked with the tapping of his toe upon the weathered porch-floor,
While the sunshine drizzles through the great oaks.
And there is my grandmother's kneeling figure,
Turning over the rich black earth with her trowel;
And the kind wrinkles on her face, as she says:
"Didn't the pansies do finely this year, Clem?
And the scarlet verbenas, and the larkspurs,
And the row of flaming salvia....
Those roses ... they're Maréchal Niels ... my favorites.
And little grandson, smell this spray of rose-geranium—
Just think, when grandmother was a little tiny girl
Her grandmother grew them in her yard!"
Clement Wood
FOUR O'CLOCKS
It is mid-afternoon. Long, long ago
Each morning-glory sheathed the slender horn
It blew so gayly on the hills of morn,
And fainted in the noontide's fervid glow.
Gone are the dew-drops from the rose's heart—
Gone with the freshness of the early hours,
The songs that filled the air with silver showers,
The lovely dreams that were of morn a part.
Yet still in tender light the garden lies;
The warm, sweet winds are whispering soft and low;
Brown bees and butterflies flit to and fro;
The peace of heaven is in the o'erarching skies.
And here be four-o'clocks, just opening wide
Their many colored petals to the sun,
As glad to live as if the evening dun
Were far away, and morning had not died!
Julia C. R. Dorr
ASKING FOR ROSES
A house that lacks, seemingly, mistress and master,
With doors that none but the wind ever closes,
Its floor all littered with glass and with plaster;
It stands in a garden of old-fashioned roses.
I pass by that way in the gloaming with Mary;
"I wonder," I say, "who the owner of those is."
"Oh, no one you know," she answers me airy,
"But one we must ask if we want any roses."
So we must join hands in the dew coming coldly
There in the hush of the wood that reposes,
And turn and go up to the open door boldly,
And knock to the echoes as beggars for roses.
"Pray, are you within there, Mistress Who-were-you?"
'Tis Mary that speaks and our errand discloses.
"Pray are you within there? Bestir you, bestir you!
'Tis summer again; there's two come for roses.
"A word with you, that of the singer recalling—
Old Herrick: a saying that every man knows is
A flower unplucked is but left to the falling,
And nothing is gained by not gathering roses."
We do not loosen our hands' intertwining
(Not caring so very much what she supposes),
There when she comes on us mistily shining
And grants us by silence the boon of her roses.
Robert Frost
THE OLD BROCADE
In a black oak chest all carven,
We found it laid,
Still faintly sweet of Lavender,
An old brocade.
With that perfume came a vision,
A garden fair,
Enclosed by great yew hedges;
A Lady there,
Is culling fresh blown lavender,
And singing goes
Up and down the alleys green—
A human rose.
The sun glints on her auburn hair
And brightens, too,
The silver buckles that adorn
Each little shoe.
Her 'kerchief and her elbow sleeves
Are cobweb lace;
Her gown, it is our old brocade,
Worn with a grace.
Methinks I hear its soft frou-frou,
And see the sheen
Of its dainty pink moss-rose buds,
Their leaves soft green,
On a ground of palest shell pink,
In garlands laid;
But long dead the Rose who wore it—
The old brocade.
M. G. Brereton
STAIRWAYS AND GARDENS
Gardens and Stairways; those are words that thrill me
Always with vague suggestions of delight.
Stairways and Gardens. Mystery and grace
Seem part of their environment; they fill all space
With memories of things veiled from my sight
In some far place.
Gardens. The word is overcharged with meaning;
It speaks of moonlight, and a closing door;
Of birds at dawn—of sultry afternoons.
Gardens. I seem to see low branches screening
A vine-roofed arbor with a leaf-tiled floor
Where sunlight swoons.
Stairways. The word winds upward to a landing,
Then curves and vanishes in space above.
Lights fall, lights rise; soft lights that meet and blend.
Stairways; and some one at the bottom standing
Expectantly with lifted looks of love.
Then steps descend.
Gardens and Stairways. They belong with song—
With subtle scents of perfume, myrrh and musk—
With dawn and dusk—with youth, romance, and mystery,
And times that were and times that are to be.
Stairways and Gardens.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
OLD MOTHERS
I love old mothers—mothers with white hair,
And kindly eyes, and lips grown softly sweet
With murmured blessings over sleeping babes.
There is a something in their quiet grace
That speaks the calm of Sabbath afternoons;
A knowledge in their deep, unfaltering eyes
That far outreaches all philosophy.
Time, with caressing touch, about them weaves
The silver-threaded fairy-shawl of age,
While all the echoes of forgotten songs
Seem joined to lend a sweetness to their speech.
Old mothers!—as they pace with slow-timed step,
Their trembling hands cling gently to youth's strength;
Sweet mothers!—as they pass, one sees again
Old garden-walks, old roses, and old loves.
Charles Ross