152 FROM A MIDDLESEX GARDEN 



the master of this fair domain, is walking. Now he stands 

 awhile beside a bush of " Maiden's Blush " ; the flowers, I 

 know, bring the old, sad story more vividly before him, that 

 has made his life what it is. They bring to him the vision of 

 her face, whose cheeks were as fair as the leaves of these 

 roses; it brings to him the time when these same blossoms 

 were in their beauty, the time when the village was happy with 

 the thought of a wedding his wedding. The little street to 

 the church was to be gay with garlands of roses. But the 

 scene changes before him, and, instead of the chime of wedding 

 bells, he hears the solemn toll ; instead of nuptial garlands, 

 there are pale blush roses upon a bier. Ah, well ! a summer 

 garden to many may seem a place only of happy dreams, but 

 how many sad memories are clinging to its rose-arbours ; there 

 is always for some the rue of sorrow growing at the root of 

 the traveller's-joy : intermingled are life's joys and sorrows, 

 ever inseparable. Thus we pay the years their due, not only 

 with smiles and merry laughter, not always with happy thanks, 

 but often standing in a garden of grief we pay Time his due 

 with the lilies of whitened faces, and red roses of weeping 

 eyes ! " Gather ye roses while ye may," Herrick bids us, yet 

 roses gathered at morn with the dew upon them, we know 

 by experience, last the longest. Morn-gathered roses, the joys 

 of our youth, are the most lasting of all, because they are so 

 often gathered with the dew of tears upon them. There is 

 no rose without a thorn in any garden ! In life's summer- 

 land the tears upon our roses are soon dispelled, for Sadi tells 

 us " A Rose-garden is no place of grief." 



