A garden bower'd close 

 With plaited alleys of the trailing rose * * 

 Crowned lilies, standing near 

 Purpk'Spiked lavender*** 



TENNYSON. 



JUNE 



TN the "Christian Year" some of the tenderest, truest pic- 

 -** tures of Nature are to be found, the beauties of each 

 passing season scattered throughout its pages, if but briefly 

 recorded in simple, homely words, are no less true. How 

 beautifully this time of the year is expressed, when every 



" Heart will bound to mark, 

 The full bright burst of summer morn, 



Loves, too, each little dewy spark, 

 By leaf or flow'ret worn ; 



Cheap forms, and common hues, 'tis true, 



Though the bright shower-drop meet his view ; 



The colouring may be of this earth, 



The lustre comes of heavenly birth." 



Wealthy indeed are the gardens with their newly-clothed 

 branches and bright blooms, and very fair in their radiance in 

 the clear light of a June morning, when the dew lies on the 

 ruddy gold of the barberry blossoms, and weighing down the 

 pure guelder roses, although soon will each snow-like cluster lift 

 its head when the sun shall have relieved each star of its dewy 

 burden. The Lilium candidum^ crowned with its green calyxes, 

 grows taller day by day ; the laburnum overflows with gold ; 

 the wisteria, a most fair sight to behold, is draping the walls 

 with its grape-like clusters of violet-purple flowers, shedding 

 a sweet perfume upon the air. One of the garden's most 

 conspicuous blossoms of each summer is the bright red of the 

 Oriental poppy (Pap aver Orientale\ now to be seen in its 

 beauty in many a wayside garden. Hugh Macmillan, in his 



155 



