6 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN 



eminence in either literature or law, and died in 1852, as 

 clerk of the county, at Newport, Isle of Wight. As Mr. 

 Colvin remarks, it is only in his association with Keats 

 that his name will live. Yet my mother loved the poem, 

 which is full of the sentiment of our little home : 



Go where the water glideth gently ever, 



Glideth through meadows that the greenest be ; 

 Go, listen to our own beloved river, 



And think of me. 



Wander in forests where the small flower layeth 



Its fairy gem beneath the giant tree ; 

 Listen to the dim brook pining while it playeth, 

 And think of me. 



Watch when the sky is silver pale at even, 

 And the wind grieveth in the lonely tree ; 

 Go out beneath the solitary heaven, 

 And think of me. 



And when the moon riseth as she were dreaming, 



And treadeth with white feet the lulled sea, 

 Go, silent as a star beneath her beaming, 

 And think of me. 



But enough of these old woman's recollections, and back 

 to the present, for the sentiment of one generation is very 

 apt to appear as worthless sentimentality to the next. 



The garden I have now is a small piece of flat ground 

 surrounding an ordinary suburban house. Kitchen- 

 garden, flower-garden, house and drive can scarcely cover 

 more than two acres. The garden is surrounded by large 

 forest trees, Spanish Chestnuts and Oaks, whose wicked 

 roots walk into all the beds almost as fast as we cut them 

 off. The soil is dry, light and sandy, and ill-adapted to 

 garden purposes. We are only sixteen miles from London, 

 and on unfavourable days, when the wind is in the 

 blighting south-east, the afternoons are darkened by 

 the smoke of the huge city. This is an immense dig- 



