" There is no gardening without humility, and an assiduous 

 willingness to learn/* 



ALFRED AUSTIN. 



DECEMBER 



The grey mists creep above the earth and curl 

 Around the faded stems of Winter's sway. 

 We sit and watch them mantling all things grey, 



Until night doth its banner black unfurl. 



One day how long, how short, it is not ours 

 To know but we shall as the grey mists be, 

 Slip out of life just as mysteriously, 



And pass away as die the Summer flowers. 



Will it be sweet to die ? will it be sad ? 

 Shall we go unaccompanied or in throngs 

 Into the silent land that no man knows ? 



Will it be beautiful and good and glad 

 To live anew, take up unfinished songs, 

 To gather at the last Life's Fadeless Rose ? 



' I V HE wild, rough winds are abroad, and we are standing 

 * in the land of Winter. Across the sky the heavy clouds 

 are scudding, clouds that are the vanguard of the snow. The 

 genial weather at last is over ; Autumn has run the course 

 of its ruin. The thrushes which made our desolate gardens 

 ring with melody for very thankfulness at the seeming return 

 of Summer, have silenced their melodies ; this abrupt change 

 from song to silence is a sure sign that the meteorological 

 conditions have changed for the worse. It is, perhaps, half 

 with joy and half with sadness we greet the year as it enters 

 upon the last stage of its journey. We see the dead reeds, 

 and hear them whisper by the desolate mere ; the scarlet 

 berries of the cuckoo-pint are rotting beneath the hedges, 

 where above them are entangled the shrivelled cleavers. The 



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