224 Old Time Gardens 



Near the close of his Endymion he wrote : 



" Nor much it grieves 



To die, when summer dies on the cold sward. 

 Why, I have been a butterfly, a lord 

 Of flowers, garlands, love-knots, silly posies, 

 Groves, meadows, melodies, and arbor roses ; 

 My kingdom's at its death, and just it is 

 That I should die with it." 



In the summer of 1816, under the influence of a 

 happy day at Hampstead, he wrote that lovely poem, 

 " I stood tiptoe upon a little hill." After a descrip- 

 tion of the general scene, a special corner of beauty 

 is thus told : 



"A bush of May flowers with the bees about them 

 Ah, sure no bashful nook could be without them 

 And let a lush Laburnum oversweep them, 

 And let long grass grow round the roots to keep them 

 Moist, cool, and green ; and shade the Violets 

 That they may bind the moss in leafy nets. 

 A Filbert hedge with Wild-brier over trim'd, 

 And clumps of Woodbine taking the soft wind, 

 Upon their summer thrones. . . ." 



Then come these wonderful lines, which belittle 

 all other descriptions of Sweet Peas : 



" Here are Sweet Peas, on tiptoe for a flight, 

 With wings of gentle flush o'er delicate white, 

 And taper fingers catching at all things 

 To bind them all about with tiny wings." 



Keats states in his letters that his love of flowers 

 was wholly for those of the " common garden sort," 



