CHAPTER XVII 
SUN-DIALS 
(i ’Tis an old dial, dark with many a stain. 
In summer crowned with drifting orchard bloom. 
Tricked in the autumn with the yellow rain. 
And white in winter like a marble tomb. 
<e And round about its gray, time-eaten brow 
Lean letters speak — a worn and shattered row : — 
€ I am a Shade ; A Shadowe too arte thou ; 
I mark the Time ; saye. Gossip, dost thou soe ? ’ ” 
— Austin Dobson. 
CENTURY or more ago, in 
the heart of nearly all English 
gardens, and in the gardens of 
our American colonies as well, 
there might be seen a pedestal 
of varying material, shape, and 
pretension, surmounted by the 
most interesting furnishing in 
“dead-works” of the garden, a sun-dial. In pub- 
lic squares, on the walls of public buildings, on 
bridges, and by the side of the way, other and 
simpler dials were found. On the walls of country 
houses and churches vertical sun-dials were dis- 
played ; every English town held them by scores. 
In Scotland, and to some extent in England, these 
sun-dials still are found ; in fine old gardens the 
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