Along a Garden Avenue 



1 TS name is more suitable than names generally are, for, 

 though on one side it faces an open reserve and looks away 

 to the river, on the other it is bordered by garden after garden, 

 each with its different wealth of beauty. Black painted fences 

 succeed grey stone walls, white palings join red brick, and 

 over and above all grow hedges of hawthorn, privet and laurel, 

 with here and there an intruding briar to lend sweetness and 

 colour. Jealously these hedges hide the beauties behind them ; 

 but the unfettered scents of lilies, mignonette and roses float 

 over, bringing me a picture of white lilies and standard roses, 

 and of stiff box hedges surrounding beds of tall pink foxgloves, 

 Canterbury bells and pansies for they must be old-fashioned, 

 those gardens hiding behind the tall straight hedges. 



But, though the flowers are sheltered from prying eyes 

 there are treasures within the gardens that the hedges cannot 

 hide and these are the trees. Oaks and elms, willows and 

 limes, ashes and sycamores they lean out above the sentinels 

 of hawthorn and laurel, and throw their friendly shade across 

 the avenue. The eye revels in their beauty, and their very 

 names are a joy, each one laden with a message of old time 

 song or story. The black branches of the spreading oak rouse 

 stirring memories of brave deeds ; the sycamore recalls sweet 

 Desdemona ; " hard by a poplar shook alway," and a group of 



