2 9 o THE PRAISE OF GARDENS 



loves them. I know you would like that to be true \ you would 

 think it a pleasant magic if you could flush your flowers into 

 brighter bloom by a kind look upon them : nay, more, if your 

 look had the power, not only to cheer, but to guard; if you 

 could bid the black blight turn away, and the knotted caterpillar 

 spare if you could bid the dew fall upon them in the drought, 

 and say to the south wind in frost 'Come, thou south, and 

 breathe upon my garden that the spices of it may flow out.' This 

 you would think a great thing? And do you think it not a 

 greater thing, that all this (and how much more than this !) you 

 can do, for fairer flowers than these flowers that could bless you 

 for having blessed them, and will love you for having loved them ; 

 flowers that have thoughts like yours, and lives like yours ; and 

 which, once saved, you save for ever ! Is this only a little power ? 

 Far among the moorlands and the rocks, far in the darkness of 

 the terrible streets, these feeble florets are lying, with all their 

 fresh leaves torn, and their stems broken : will you never go down 

 to them, nor set them in order in their little fragrant beds, nor 

 fence them, in their trembling, from the fierce wind? Shall 

 morning follow morning for you, but not for them ; and the dawn 

 rise, to watch, far away, those frantic Dances of Death ; but no 

 dawn rise to breathe upon those living banks of wild viclet, and 

 woodbine and rose ; nor call to you, through your casement call 

 (not giving you the name of the English poet's lady, but the name 

 of Dante's great Matilda, who, on the edge of happy Lethe, stood, 

 wreathing flowers with flowers), saying : 



' Come into the garden, Maud, 



For the black bat, night, has flown, 

 And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad, 

 And the musk of the roses blown ' ? 



Will you not go down among them ? Among those sweet living 

 things whose new courage, sprung from the earth with the deep 

 colour of heaven upon it, is starting up in strength of goodly spire ; 

 and whose purity, washed from the dust, is opening, bud by bud, 

 into the flower of promise ; and still they turn to you, and for 



