IN PRAISE OF GARDENS 



to be to the eye; and a garden, lovingly tended, 

 may become a very orchestra of colors which 

 varies its symphonic movements with the varying 

 seasons of the year. Flowers may be said to be 

 the words of the poetry of sunlight, and their 

 colors its music. They come and they go; but 

 in the interval a perfect expression has found 

 utterance, and the vision or song, call it what 

 you will, has spoken its appeal, has revealed its 

 message. 



A garden is also eloquent to the ear, for it is 

 the home of song-birds. Here come and nest the 

 happy people of the sky, accompanying, with 

 their vocal music, the thoughts and emotions 

 which the garden, by its silence, breathes into us. 

 They pipe their lays to our mood either of morn- 

 ing exultation or of evening's meditation. The 

 mystery is that they come upon us not as in- 

 truders or disturbers in this retreat of quietude, 

 but rather as companions in labor or as friends 

 in sympathy. I know no more joyous encourager 

 to effort than the lark's song falling down from 

 a brilliant summer evening's sky; and I know of 

 no more deeply touching sense of kinship with 

 nature than that which comes over us with the 

 parting trills of the thrush on some golden, 



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