Perennials 



51 



garden. Doubtless it flourishes elsewhere. May its shadow never grow 

 less until it reveals itself again to us in its beautiful old-time splendour. 



Another neglected once-upon-a-time favounte is the Christmas rose. 

 To look, on Christmas Eve, into a ^, -^ 



little hollow walled with snow, at its 1 

 waxy blossoms, white, flushed with 

 pink, is like looking down at the 

 Bambino in an Italian church at 

 Christmastide. 



After all, there are but few 

 among the dear old favourites that 

 have grown out of our affections. 

 ]\Iost of them have been loved down 

 through the years by so many who 

 have sounded their praises in poetry 

 and prose that a wealth of associa- 

 tion now surrounds them for those " 



A young hollyhock in sprine, grown from seeds sown in 

 of whom it can be said a frame the previous August 



"In books and gardens thou hast placed aright 

 Thy noble, innocent dehght. " 



Literature has embraced the old-fashioned garden, and more and more in 

 these days the garden gathers to itself an added charm from literature. 

 We feel it with the primrose, the violet, and daffodil ; the wallflower, whose 

 unassuming blossoms send forth Old World memories as well as their own 

 dehghtful fragrance; with the dainty columbine, and the foxglove, whose 

 flower-stalk arrangement Ruskm likens unto the various stages of life — 

 infancy at the top, old age withering away below. Tennyson speaks of 

 "the foxglove spire." 



Rich are we m these treasures, for the flowers that a well-stocked hardy 

 border holds may be called the classics of the garden. 



Compared with our short span of lite, they belong to the Immortals. 



Year after year "the same dear things lift up the same fair faces," and 

 we would gladly become perennial, far beyond the limit of our threescore 

 years and ten, to longer enjoy our hardy flower friends. 



