THE LOOM OF AUTUMN 21 5 



You alone, faithful honeysuckles that 

 wall the garden, have yet a lease. 

 When your vanilla-scented flowers van- 

 ish, your thick persistent leaves and 

 firm berries will shelter and feed the 

 winter birds. We will call you the 

 garden's Royal Inn; what bird have 

 you not harboured cheerfully, how 

 many little claws have signed your 

 register? Transients and steady lodg- 

 ers, prolific wrens that brought out 

 three broods of a season, robins that 

 only stopped to see how the straw- 

 berries and currants ripened, the oriole 

 who paused to fray a string, that bound 

 you once, that he might lash his sky 

 boat, and at evening the vesper-sparrow 

 came, and facing the glowing west 

 poured out his heart in song; and still 

 your hospitable thatch will shelter all 

 that ask, until fresh buds bring renewal. 

 Wide beds of bloom, you are already 



