§ty The Scented Qarden fj£ 



wonders whether there is, so to speak, a pattern in the 

 robe of flower and leaf wherewith this old earth is 

 adorned, a pattern so grand and yet so intricate that only 

 the angels can apprehend it in its beauty. Are those other 

 vast worlds — so vast that beside them this earth is almost 

 negligible — but the larger flowers which adorn the paths 

 of the angels ? Is even their stupendous grandeur but a 

 minute example of the perfection of Divine workman- 

 ship, whose endless perfections aeons of time will not be 

 sufficient to reveal ? What melodies and what fragrance 

 must rejoice the angels in those far-flung gardens of space ? 

 Whilst we on this earth cannot yet understand or even 

 know very much about a petal of a flower or a blade of 

 grass, in themselves worlds of beauty, setting forth, no 

 less than the greatest stars, the perfect workmanship of 

 God. 



1 The night has made a nosegay of the stars 

 Bound with a straying fragrance from the South : 

 Of wax white Jasmine, and of that dark Rose — 

 That sombre Rose — to whom the fountains sing — 

 (She seems so like a wild heart listening), 

 From Night's faint hold it drops down to the Sea ; 

 Slowly the radiant flowers — one by one — 

 Are freed, and float in silence out of sight. 

 The sea stirs — as a child stirs half asleep — 

 Gathers them to invest her wistful dream 

 With beauty ; for who else knows loneliness 

 Wraith-bound — close and forever — like the Sea ? 



Across the fair pavilion of the Moon 



A shadow passes — in swift ordered flight 



Wild geese, miles high, whose echoed trumpet call 



Soars eastward — sweeping to the port of dawn.' 



190 



