FIELD, FOREST, AND WAYSIDE 
FLOWERS 
CHAPTER I 
CROCUSES 
“As sweet desire of day before the day, 
As dreams of love before the true love born, 
From the outer edge of winter over-worn, 
The ghost arisen of May before the May 
Takes through dim air her unawakened way.” 
—Swinburne. 
IT seems, at first, an inconsistency that so many 
of the monastic communities of old should have 
owned and tended gardens. A garden:—the word 
suggests roses and honeysuckles, early peas and lus- 
cious strawberries, summer days passed amid fair 
surroundings, whatsoever is most opposite to the 
unbeautified life, meagre fare, and narrow cell of 
the ascetic. 
Even if the gardens grew only bitter herbs for 
fast-day pottages the south wind wafted perfumes 
over them, the butterflies danced in them, and the 
birds sang in them joyous strains, likely to lead 
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