A WALK BOUND MY GAEDEN O 



is three centuries since this Klac was carried from 

 Persia to England. 



9. That foxglove recalls the flowers that grow on 

 the sunny side of an old moss-covered wall in Surrey, 

 and these harebells that nod in the wind take us to a 

 breezy down in Sussex. The tall poplar at the 

 garden-foot takes the thought to Lombardy, and to the 

 wide plains of Germany and France ; and the plane 

 tree on the road beyond carries one, as on a magic 

 -carpet, to the Levant. This looking-glass bush is 

 from New Zealand, and that silky oak is from the 

 ■coast of New South Wales. 



10. Memories of childhood are stirred as we come 

 to a border of violets. Cherished for itself, this 

 beautiful flower is prized still more because it brings 

 back the first garden of childhood and the first flower 

 that was planted in it. Happy the child who is set 

 over a little plot of garden ground ! Whatever may 

 happen in after-life, that first garden of childhood is 

 a garden of Eden from which he can never be driven 

 out. And now we pass a bed of cress, and I recall the 

 awestruck boy who saw one morning his own name 

 rising in hving green letters from the dark earth.* 



11. These green shoots breaking through the 

 ground are daffodils. They come to us in August, 

 but they also come to us with the winds of , March, 

 because it was then that Shakespeare saw them. It 

 was then, too, that Wordsworth saw them. Here we 

 have come upon another clue that leads us to the 

 isecret of the garden's charm. This flower is dear to us 



* Parents would be doing a great service to their children if to each child 

 they would grant a little plot of ground. This plot should be visited 

 ■occasionally, and encouragement given to the child's first attempts at 

 .gardening. 



