260 FROM A MIDDLESEX GARDEN 



and tender shades ? Your botanist and your chemist will tell 

 you that the green colouring matter in plants is nothing else 

 but the visible appearance of chlorophyll, the red silk-like 

 petal but denotes the presence of erythrophyll, the hue on 

 the wallflower's blossoms but pharophyll. Colour, 



" What is it ? A learned man 



Could give it a clumsy name, 

 Let him name it who can, 



The beauty would be the same." 



First and foremost in the world the prevailing colour 

 is blue, the colour of the great sky, the colour of many 

 flowers, the colour of one of the loveliest of jewels, the colour 

 with which we associate the eyes of little children 



" Eyes the bluer for all those hidden hours 

 That pleasure fills with tears," 



as Swinburne sings. At the mention of this colour, in thought 

 we fly to old scenes where with happy hands we gathered blue 

 violets under blue skies, or peeped with our inquiring eyes 

 into some hedgerow home to count the blue eggs ; or we 

 sorrow at our inability to gather the frail blossoms of 



" The little speedwell's darling blue." 

 The mystery of it all, so beautifully expressed 



" Flower, 



... I pluck you . . . 

 Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 

 Little flower but if I could understand 

 What you are, root and all, and all in all, 

 I should know what God and man is." 



