MAY 107 



Lavender," I found one of the prettiest of garden songs, 

 written for a fly-leaf of Herbert's poems : 



" Year after year, from dusk to dusk, 

 How sweet this English garden grows ! 

 Steeped in two centuries' sun and musk, 

 Walled from the world in grey repose ; 

 Harbour of honey-freighted bees, 

 And wealthy with the rose. 



Here pinks with spices in their throats 

 Nod by the bitter marigold ; 

 Here nightingales with haunting notes, 

 When east and west with stars are bold, 

 From out the twisted hawthorn trees, 

 Sing back the weathers old. 



All tuneful winds do down it pass ; 

 The leaves a sudden whiteness show, 

 And delicate noises fill the grass ; 

 The only flakes its paces know 

 Are petals blown off briers long, 

 And heaped on blades below. 



Ah ! dawn and dusk, year after year, 

 'Tis more than these that keep it rare ! 

 We see the saintly master here, 

 Pacing along the alleys fair, 

 And catch the throbbing of their song 

 Across the amber air ! " 



On either side of me, as I walk through the woods in the 

 May noon, the ways in certain places are still embrowned with 

 last year's leaves ; faintly they crackle where the sunlight falls 

 upon them between the branches. Perchance this pleasant 

 sound is the voice of the new leaves struggling for the light 

 beneath them, whispering, " We want to feel tke kiss of the 



