ON THE THEORY OF A GARDEN. 23 



round these objects : the one touch of romance 

 in a narrow, simple life is linked with them. 

 Hearts danced or hearts drooped in this vicinity. 

 Eyes that brimmed over with laughter or that were 

 veiled with tears looked on these things as we look 

 on them now drank in the shifting lights and 

 shadows on the grass watched the waving of the 

 cedar's dark layers of shade against an angry sky, 

 " stern as the unlashed eye of God," and all the 

 birds were silent once took in the sylvan vistas 

 of trees, lawn, fir-ridge, the broad-water where the 

 coots and moor-hens now play (as then) among the 

 green lily-pads and floating weeds, regardless of 

 Regulas in lead standing in their midst ; once dwelt 

 upon the lustrous flower-beds, on the sun-dial on 

 the terrace noonday rendezvous of fantails on the 

 " Alley of Sighs," with its clipped beeches, its grey- 

 stone seat half-way down, its rustle of dying leaves, 

 and traditions of intrigue ; on the lime avenue full 

 of perfume in the sweet-o'-the-year, on the foot- 

 bridge across the moat, on the streak of blue autumn 

 mist that tracks the stream in yonder meadows 

 where the landrail is croaking, and that brings 

 magically near the beat of hoofs, the jingle of horses' 

 bells, the rumble of homeward wagons on the road, 

 and whiffs of the reapers' songs ; on the brief bril- 

 liance of the garden-panorama as the wintry-moon 

 gives the black clouds the slip and suddenly discloses 

 a white world of snow-muffled forms, that gleams 

 with the eerie pallor of a ghost, and is as suddenly 

 dissolved into darkness. 



