Stray Leaves from a Border Garden 
It is running dark with blood-red wine, 
O give me to drink of the healing stream, 
The stream that cures the aching head, 
O say is it Paradise or a Dream ? 
By the sweet waters, o’er the green plain, 
Gold apples of life in His open hand, 
Cometh the Christ-child to ease my pain, 
He calls me away to the Heavenly Land. 
January 26. — -Gathered to-day the very first snowdrops, 
only half a dozen, small and very short-stalked. Praise to 
Priapus, God of Gardens. Something at last ! I heard the 
other day they were called Fair Maids of February, because 
the maidens who walked in the Candlemas processions 
used to wear white, and decked the Virgin’s altar with 
snowdrops. 
February 1. — The snowdrops now cover all the southern 
banks, and do look so funny with patches of snow inter- 
spersed. I like the quaint German name for them — Schnee 
Glockchen (Little Snowbells) ; the French name is Perce- 
neige . The legend of the Snowdrops is so pretty, I must 
just note it here, I think : 
Upon the dreary unknown wild, 
Mourning her fate, by Sin beguiled, 
Eve cowered, ’neath the driving blast, 
Wretched and homeless, poor, outcast. 
The whirling snowclouds hid from view 
The Paradise that once she knew 
Where she no longer might remain. 
Her white soul was not free from stain. 
Yet when in fulness of her grief 
She prayed far Heaven to send relief, 
A mighty Angel stayed his flight, 
Abroad, upon the wings of Night, 
And bending o’er her prostrate form, 
Gathered some snowflakes of the storm, 
And bade them flowers become, to show 
That she despair no more need know : 
' ‘ Pure as these snowflakes, ’ ’ then said he, 
" Shall you again, O fallen, be, 
Not always shall you outcast wait, 
Sin-stained before the sealed gate.” 
He spake, and where his foot had trod 
A ring of snowdrops starred the sod. 
96 
