THE GARDENS OF THE DEAD 



flowers, set here crimson, and there orange, here purple, 

 and there blue ; range our colours from white to cream, to 

 deep cream, to all the shades of all the colours, to deep 

 impenetrable purple, more black than black, like the 

 dusky eyes of anemonies. 



When it is night, and " the dead all lying in their 

 graves at rest, below the solemn moon," the thousand 

 thousand Daisies of the fields have closed their eyes, and 

 the Buttercups' golden glaze is mellowed by the moon- 

 light, still there are flowers gay in the sunshine some- 

 where in the world. Though the garden is chequered in 

 the blue-green light and heavy shadows, and the owls 

 hoot in their melancholy voices, still there are birds some- 

 where in the world singing. And though, across the way 

 behind the wall, white in the moonlight, lies the dark 

 churchyard, and all is very still there, still, I think, they, 

 whose names are carved there on the stones, are not in 

 the dark, and do not know the damp and mouldy earth, 

 but are somewhere in some world more light and beauti- 

 ful than this. 



The solemnity of this type of thought is seldom given 

 to me by flowers ; it is more the breath of trees, and the 

 deep places of a wood, that gives one this feeling of hush 

 and peace. Flowers are gay, stately, exuberant, 

 simple, but always joyous, as witness the pert question- 

 ing faces of Pansies, and the languorous droop of Roses, 

 the stately propriety of Lilies, the romantic splendour of 

 purple Clematis, and the passionate beauty of the 

 coloured Anemonies. In a garden are all moods, from 

 that given by a school of white Pinks, to the masterly 

 exactitude of the Red-Hot Poker, or the limpid and very 

 virginal appearance of Lavender. Youth itself comes in 

 full blood with the blossom on fruit trees ; the slim 

 elegance of childhood with the Narcissus and the Daffodil. 

 Daintiness herself is in Columbine ; maidenly virtue is in 



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