MY GARDEN an d measured as the couplets of a Pope. The 

 OF DREAMS naturalistic or "wild" garden has been as un- 

 fettered and spontaneous as the most roman- 

 tic poetry. There have been periods when, as 

 in the sentimental gardens of the eighteenth 

 century, the sentiment was morbid and un- 

 wholesome. There are formal gardens, as 

 chaste and restrained as the purest classics, 

 and there are gardens where the highest art, 

 with reverence for the soul of Nature, has 

 striven, as in poetry truly great, to give to 

 Nature that setting where her appeal may best 

 be made. There are gardens with a quality of 

 expression as unique as the poetry of Browning, 

 and others as commonplace as the sentiments 

 of the conventional poets. 



The poetical garden is of no one fixed style. 

 It may be formal as the famous Italian gardens, 

 classic as the most restrained, or wild as the 

 lover of the naturalistic can make it if he be 

 an artist in the making. 



If, then, we may speak of the poetical gar- 

 den, — if we would have the poetical garden, — 

 we must recognize certain laws to which the 

 garden, like poetry, must conform. All styles 



[54] 



