194 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



December, 1912 



"Yes, even so. The moon is for the 

 whole world, not for single flowers." 



"So we're to look at flowers to-night?" 



"Yes, flowers and trees. People never 

 do it, I know, but that's because they don't 

 understand how wonderful flowers are 

 when they're sleeping and how soft the 

 leaves feel when they're resting and what 

 odors there are when night descends. Now 

 come down where the dahlias are — down 

 this long line. See — put your lantern 

 behind the box trees and look at the dim 

 shadowy column. They're spirit flowers 

 now in this blue moonlight. I call them 

 my company invisible, when I walk through 

 by night and you — why — World-Man — 

 do you ever pray? " 



"Pray, why, Madame I — 



"It would be well to do so now, before 

 you join my company invisible, just any 

 kind of a prayer, a wee bit, every one 

 should who enters this path for the first 

 time at night, for you see we're in a spirit 

 world anow and must be spirits ourselves or 

 we shall not be fit company for those we 

 love, who have gone their way so far from 

 the gardens of Hope, who return on such 

 nights as this to linger awhile with us. 

 Tread lightly. There must not be any 

 sound save that of 1ow t voices, else we 

 disturb the flower spirits. Down here 

 where the juniper strews its black shadow, 

 sometimes at night I fancy I hear the deep 

 bass note of a bassoon. The wind has a 

 way of dropping down from the tulip tree 

 as if it were glad to curl up with a deep sigh 

 of delight in these old branches. Seems 

 to me I can almost hear the bassoon now. 

 Can you hear it?" 



"Yes, there is a wind note somewhere. 

 1 can't locate it exactly." 



"I'm quite sure it's in the juniper. I love 

 this bit of the garden, just out of fancy I call 

 it my Court of Honor — and I come here so 

 often alone to ask for my heart's desire." 



"How about the heart's desire. Is it 

 granted by the flowers, or by the wind, or 

 the moon, or by what?" 



"Oh, everything, together. Sometime 

 I find my Heart's Desire quite as I ask for 

 it, after I leave the garden, and again I do 

 not, but something always comes to me at 

 the asking which is quite beautiful and 

 unexpected, for to walk in a garden and beg 

 a wish of the flowers is a talisman. 



We walked on midst shadowy rows of 

 yellow, saffron, mauve, lavender, pearly 

 white, crimson and scarlet blossoms until 

 we came to the burst of veiled glory in a 

 cluster of ruby domes. 



"Dear Chatelaine, we have gone back 

 centuries. Now I know what you meant 

 about the prayer as we entered the garden, 

 only it is not the saints who come to us; 

 it is the others, all those others who have 

 given us dreams, those things we World- 

 Men live upon, the cup we drink from when 

 the roar chokes us and there seems to be 

 no God's world but only a man world of 

 stone and noise. Surely in that ruby there 

 burns the soul of the wicked Shahryar, and 

 this great white beauty leaning over close 



by is the learned and most beautiful Shay- 

 razad, queen of his heart. Can't you hear 

 that deep oriental voice — "Know thou 

 most auspicious King, that once upon a 

 time — Indeed I can hear her or is it 



the Poet of Poets singing: 



"Oh Moon of my Delight that knows no wane, 

 The Moon of Heaven is rising once again 

 How oft hereafter rising shall she look 

 Through this same Garden after me in vain." 



"You may be right. Of course I cannot 

 see with your eyes, but my garden spirits 

 are different. They are more real to me 

 than you imagine. They are all those I 

 love who have walked in my garden — 

 coming back again to-day — real people, 

 not those of the Arabian Nights. They 

 have gone from me as these flowers go — 

 one by one — and they all return such 

 nights." 



"Do you mean the dead?" 



"Oh no, not only the dead. They come 

 too, but with them are all those whose 

 presence has adorned my garden ; they come 

 all of them, back to the flowers. But differ- 

 ent ones come at different times. The chil- 

 dren come back with the tulips and hya- 

 cinths and the laughing daffodils; but all 

 must first have been here in their material 

 bodies before their spirits can return. Last 

 spring on a late afternoon I was up in my 

 bedroom, dreaming away in rest after many 

 hours out of doors,iwhen suddenly, quite like 

 the descent of a flock of black birds, there 

 came to my ears the sound of most exquisite 

 music. Children from the village school, 

 answering a summons to the Spring Festi- 

 val of Daffodils, had come unexpectedly. 

 Oh those soft, high-pitched voices, laughing, 

 shouting, a chorus of youth and joy surging 

 down one path of the garden and upanother. 

 Then, like a brook, I could hear them run- 

 ning to the water, then they ran to the 

 tulips, then to the hyacinths, always carry- 

 ing with them the chorus of laughter, and 

 gladness. Why, World-Man, that song 

 has rung in my soul all summer, it rings day 

 after day. It is in the garden to stay — 

 forever — all that laughing of children. 

 And each year it will return with the daffo- 

 dils and it will sing up and down all the 

 paths, it will trill down to the water and on 

 to the bridge and the laughter will always 

 be here. This is what I mean by the 

 coming of spirits. If we only realized what 

 we lose by walled in, shut in, exclusive 

 gardens ! Youths and maidens come to my 

 garden when the roses are gay in the arbors. 

 Men and women when the trumpet vine 

 blows; gray beards with the dahlias, and 

 with the chrysanthemums — oh, it is only 

 those who can never walk in my garden 

 again, the saints immortal, they come often 

 at other seasons, but with the chrysanthe- 

 mums more than with any other flower. 

 This is the path leading to the old burying 

 ground; here they are, my phantom flowers, 

 my ethereal chrysanthemums, like naked 

 souls in flight, cold, wet, pure as the air it- 

 self. They will soon be the only flowers left. 

 They are the end of everything, the amen, 



echo of the benediction after everything is 

 gone, where, where, where nobpdy 

 knows, but everything is gone, only that 

 big moon over there. I suppose the moon 

 must know where the scents from all the 

 flowers have gone. Would you think sc? " 



"Yes, the moon must know; she drinks 

 deep of all such mysterious pleasures." 



" Now this way, over the lily tangle across 

 the little bridge to the yew tree, here's where 

 we'll listen, for here if anywhere your 

 spirits would be quite certain to await us." 



"My spirits?" 



"Yes, the long, long dead." 



"The wicked King Shahryar and the 

 beautiful Shayrazad?" 



"No, not they. The shade of the yew 

 tree would be too somber for Shahryar. I 

 mean our Cavalier." 



"Your Cavalier?" 



" Yes, our Cavalier. I know^ as surely as 

 I do anything that there is somewhere — 

 where I don't know — but somewhere the 

 soul of the one who planted this tree cen- 

 turies ago, and that that soul is loving it 

 with a deep emotion, and why shouldn't it 

 be our Cavalier? " 



"I suppose it could be, only who is he?" 



"I couldn't tell you, only this. There is 

 a story about this old house and gardens 

 that the Cavaliers, you know those gay 

 fellows who followed the first Lord Balti- 

 more, drifted to the Eastern Shore of Mary- 

 land and that one of them came here and 

 made a garden. The Colonel told me him- 

 self that several people at different times 

 had seen a young Cavalier, gaily dressed, 

 wearing a three cornered hat and a long 

 green velvet cloak coming down the stair- 

 way in the great House. He always walks 

 across the green and disappears under the 

 yew tree." 



"And you believe he was the one who 

 planted this tree, and that his soul revisits 

 the spot year after year?" 



"Why not?" 



We sat down on the stone bench and 

 dropped into silence while my memory 

 carried me back, not to the days of the 

 Cavaliers, but to the years that were slip- 

 ping by us; those years through which had 

 passed alternately triumphal processions 

 and dreary marches of defeat. Triumph 

 after triumph among the flowers and native 

 trees on one side, and on the other failure 

 after failure in my attempts to wTest from 

 the Yew tree the mystery of its birth. 



"World-Man, if I should see our Cavalier 

 — coming now, this minute, across the 

 Bowling Green I should say: — 'Most 

 gentle Cavalier stop with us a moment in 

 your shadowless path. We would have 

 speech with you, not for long, only a 

 moment, most gentle Sir. Stay with us 

 this moment, there is need of your presence. 

 Take these slips, I break them now from 

 the old tree, your tree, the tree you loved 

 See they are young and fresh and strong, 

 all life, all hope, as they were so long ago 

 when you brought them here. Take them 

 and for the love of Heaven show me how 

 to plant a yew tree. ' " 



