58 A YEAR IN A LANCASHIRE GARDEN. 



Adonis" has been translated by Mrs. Browning, 

 and I know no translation equal to it in general 

 fidelity and vigour of expression. It appears to 

 me, on the whole, perhaps the very best translation 

 in the language. Here are the lines which tell this 

 part of the story : 



" Ah, ah, Cytherea! Adonis is dead ; 

 She wept tear after tear with the blood which was shed, 

 And both turned into flowers for the earth's garden close, 

 Her tears to the Windflower, his blood to the Rose." 



Another still more famous Greek poem about the 

 Rose is one by Sappho, which Mrs. Browning has 

 also most beautifully translated a fit task, which 

 unites the names of the two great poetesses of 

 Greece and England. The poem begins : 



" If Zeus chose us a king of the flowers in his mirth, 

 He would call to the Rose and would royally crown it : 

 For the Rose, ho ! the Rose, is the grace of the earth ; 

 Is the light of the plants that are growing upon it." 



No wonder the Greeks wove their wreaths of the 

 Rose, or that " under the Rose " they passed many 

 a gay and happy hour, to be kept in memory, if 

 untold in words. 



My bedding-out is of course finished, but of this 

 I must speak on the next occasion. The weather 

 has been hot, and rain will now be welcome. 



