THE JOY OF GARDENS 



ON WINGS OF HOPE 



WINTER has fled. What matter if skies are gray 

 and lawns hidden deep beneath the driven snow, 

 for at dawn the sparrows sang of the coming of spring and 

 let out the secret that St. Valentine's Day is here. The 

 mist curtains parted before sunrise. The east, long veiled 

 in somber vapors of smoked amethyst, which only on rare 

 winter mornings flashed with the light of the slumbering 

 fires, blazed with roseate flames as if to assure the ice- 

 bound lands that the sun still wheeled in the heavens at 

 his appointed time and all 's right with the world. 



Strike open the rusty lock of the garden gate ; the hour 

 has sounded for conquest. The upper air is as bright as 

 at Eastertide, silver wreaths of fog trail fairy-veils on the 

 tops of the pine trees, and the sun shines resplendently, 

 diffusing a gentle warmth through the atmosphere as he 

 rises higher and higher to the full splendor of midday. 



The blanket of snow covering the lily beds is melting, 



