** Pity it is that the word garden should be so vulgarised by 

 worldly gardens/* 



ALICE MEYNELL. 



JANUARY 



With laurustine and aconite 



The garden ways first colours show, 

 And every day the lengthening light. 



Now all but o'er is Winter's night, 



For here and there the snowdrops blow 

 With laurustine and aconite. 



A sky of blue, a cloud of white, 



A stream set free runs swift below, 

 And every day the lengthening light. 



Oh, welcome are the first flowers to sight, 

 Where by some path new life doth glow 

 With laurustine and aconite. 



So each day viewing Winter's flight, 



Our eyes some new-born beauty know, 

 And every day the lengthening light. 



Spring's herald comes from wintry height, 



The giftless garden to endow 

 With laurustine and aconite, 

 And every day the lengthening light. 



'TPHE flowers are coming back ! The yellow aconite in 

 A little clusters of gold by garden ways, still desolate of 

 other bloom, tells that not so very far off Spring is impatiently 

 waiting to make her shy entry into the world, and unfold to 

 us her fair treasures. The laurustine, too, has opened at last, 

 a cyme of white and pink, waiting through many a weary 

 week of grey before venturing to do so. But the aconite is 



