MY GARDEN be that of a Browning, so for such a garden to 

 OF DREAMS ^ ac k now l e dg e( l i t mus t indeed be the work 

 of a master. Even then a Browning is less a 

 master of expression, though he be Browning. 



The pure office of the poet is to express with 

 grace and charm what lies too deep for ordi- 

 nary speech. The pure office of the poet of the 

 garden is to express with grace and charm in 

 ordered nature the beauty and harmony of 

 nature, which is unordered and therefore not 

 fully expressed in the wild. 



A first requirement of the garden is that it 

 be beautiful. Like the poet, the maker of the 

 garden must be, to use Hawthorne's phrase, 

 an artist of the beautiful. He must be able to 

 discern the spirit of beauty in nature, revealed 

 only to the poet's finer sight, and give it form 

 in the life of the garden. He must enable the 

 imagination to discern something of the ideal 

 beauty. 



Like the poet, the maker of the garden, if he 

 would express effectively his ideal, must have 

 precision of touch. He must know exactly 

 what effect he desires, and produce it by a firm 

 stroke of color here, a beam of light or a 



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