T 



** The roses that in yonder hedge appear 

 Outdo our garden^buds which bloom within/' 



JEAN INGELOW. 



JUNE 



HE words that haunt me to-day are 



" The sweetest flower wild Nature yields, 

 A fresh-blown musk-rose ; 'twas the first that threw 

 Its sweets upon the summer." 



These were the words Keats wrote in praise of the coral and 

 creamy blossoms that now are decking hedgerow and wood- 

 side with their myriad of stars. The wild rose should indeed 

 be a proud flower, for numberless are the endearing titles 

 that have been bestowed upon it ; and what poet, great or 

 small, has left it unmentioned ? It was Wordsworth's " Poet's 

 Darling," it was Burns's " Sultana to the Nightingale," indeed, 

 the queen of flowers to all our poets. They have sung its 

 praise when its opening buds showed a coral jewel encased in 

 an emerald setting ; they have told us of its beauty when 

 newly opened and sparkling with the diamond dew of morn ; 

 they have lauded it when its fallen petals embroidered the 

 grass beneath. It is beautiful at all times, when it puts forth 

 its new foliage in Spring until the winter-time, when its ver- 

 milion fruit is the jewellery of the hedge. Every spot where 

 it chooses to climb it makes beautiful with a grace only their 

 trailing branches have the power to do, and never do they 

 look more lovely than when climbing about the gateway of 

 some forgotten garden, peeping in upon its weed-filled alleys 

 as though asking the passers-by to respect it still for the sake 

 of its lost grandeur and the sacred memories it holds. Sisters 

 to this wayside star are the sweet roses of our garden, number- 



150 



