Stray Leaves from a Border Garden 
Here is a little what I may call “ Poeme de Circon- 
stance ” : 
Yonder the turret where my Lady sleeps, 
Under her Casement see a Gardener sweeps 
The fallen yellow leaves as fast they fall ; 
The year is ended — they do but recall 
Past golden hours when the small birde’s song, 
In the now leafless branches echoed long, 
The memories of fled Summer strew the way 
The little gardener sweeps them all away. 
Beneath his blouse of blue methinks peep wings, 
A little Love, whom Time, the old man, brings 
Sometimes to help to make the garden fair, 
For Time has much to think of, many a care. 
He trims the eglantine with dimpled hand, 
Binds wayward sprays with softest withy band : 
The pruning-knife of Love who doth not know, 
Some trace of it must every garden show. 
The heart-shaped beds set deep in lush green grass 
He rakes with care. — My Lady loves to pass 
By there, when sunbeams flicker in the trees 
And softly whispering comes the summer breeze. 
His work all done, he spreads his little wings, 
Taps at my Lady’s casement, sweetly sings : 
‘ 4 J oys and sorrows 
Bright to-morrows, 
All the pages of the Year 
With proud bearing 
Velvet wearing 
See in glittering train draw near ! 
A gay young knight 
In armour bright, 
With a shield without a stain — 
Wake to greet him, 
Rouse to meet him, 
Coming o’er the whitening plain ! ” 
How pretty the Christmas-roses are when well grown — 
the Christmas-flowers, as they are sometimes called ! I 
think they are some of the loveliest flowers we have, 
whether it is the white variety with its pale green shadows 
or the dark pink. I have heard that at Christmas-time 
Covent Garden Market is just a show of them. I should 
like to see it. 
There is a legend — German, I think — about the black 
hellebore, that it bloomed first of all in Eden, where it 
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