Stray Leaves from a Border Garden 
used to be put out for Sleipnir, Odin’s horse, to feed on, 
but it is now put for the birds of the air. Luckily it is 
mild just now, but, should it turn cold, I have promised 
Boy he shall be little Love and feed the birds : 
“Not even the birds should forgotten be 
At Christmas time,” little Love says he, 
“ So I will deck them a Christmas-tree,” 
And the birds come flocking around to see. 
Over the slippery upstanding rocks 
And the frozen snow in cold icy blocks, 
On each berryless bough that sadly mocks 
Their hungry souls — birds appear in flocks. 
Love stood on the tips of his small bare toes 
Hanging strings of red hips and haws in rows, 
For the little birds love such gifts, he knows 
And over the white surrounding snows 
Are prints of the tiny eager feet 
Of the birds, who all come in hopes to eat. 
With bursts of song little Love they greet. 
Says he, “ Merry Christmas.” They say, “ Sweet.” 
January 15. — Welcome little stranger! 
Boy and I went to pay our respects to a little stranger 
just arrived at the Gardener’s cottage. I have always 
delighted in Hans Andersen’s “ Fairy Tales/’ and the 
story of the stork as a baby-bringer is familiar to Boy, being 
made clear to his mind by a tiny quaint silver cradle 
surmounted by a stork with a dear little swaddled baby 
depending from its beak, which I came across long ago in 
an old Dutch curiosity-shop. He also loves a little white 
sugar stork bearing a baby on its back, and likes to hear 
the story of how it was found in a little old “ sweetie ” shop 
on the German side of the Rhine, close to an old stone 
bridge with a boundary gatehouse in the middle of the 
centre pier. 
He likes, too, the legend of the Lily Lake : 
Where infant souls beneath their angels’ keep 
Do slumber sweetly. . . . 
That lies where none may know, by Heaven’s gate, 
Each little soul dreams of the days to come 
But some will never know an earthly home, 
But sleeping still with sweetest smile will wait. 
66 
