A crimson bower the garden glows 

 In overhanging noon/* 



GEORGE E. WOODBERRY. 



JULY 



T LOVE my garden best in the dawn-tide of July. One 

 must be up betimes if he would know the whole 

 meaning of Tennyson's beautiful lines in the saddest of his 

 lyrics, " Tears, Idle Tears " : 



" Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns 

 The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds." 



It were as vain as looking for branches of delicate apple- 

 blossoms in an Autumn garden ravaged by rain and filled 

 with blown leaves and broken boughs, as for one to listen 

 at noon or eve for the singular beauty of the birds' notes 

 heard only in "dark summer dawns." As soon as a faint 

 light appears in the east the " earliest pipe " is heard : first 

 the single note of a bird comes softly from a distant tree, 

 then there is a brief hush which is broken by more than one 

 bird-voice ; and these are the first indications of 



" The opening eyelids of the morn." 



As the brightness grows, and the beauty of field and wood, 

 hidden by night's veil, becomes clearer, the music of the 

 birds increases, until a full chorus greets the moment when 

 the cloud-bars across the sky's eastern gate are unfastened 

 and the sun arises in all its glory ! Listening in the hush 

 of early morn, the harmonies of the birds' songs seem truly 

 wonderful ; and never, we believe, have they altered their 

 songs with which they heralded the first dawns of the world 

 from the dewy boughs of Eden. 



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