Autumn mornings and robins — Italian Daturas — The useful ' Myti-
cuttah ' — Nerines — Three Cape greenhouse plants — Sweet Chest-
nuts—Other people's gardening difficulties — Making new beds —
The great Apple time — French White Haricot — The stewing of
chickens and game — Ke-planting Violas and Saxifrages — 'St.
Luke's summer ' — Plants for August, September, and October —
London gardens.
October 1st. — Once more we are back in the month when
the robin sings so much. The robins, I find, are the
tamest of all the birds in a garden ; and as we fork over
the beds, or dig new ones, they follow us all about,
enjoying much the newly turned-up earth. Almost the
prettiest lines in the ' Christian Year ' are about the Robin
Eedbreast, and were written by a friend of Keble's. I
wonder if the ' Christian Year ' is read now, and is as well
known as it used to be ? I will risk it, and recall the two
favourite little verses : —
TO THE EEDBREAST
Unheard in summer's flaring ray,
Pour forth thy notes, sweet singer,
Wooing the stillness of the autumn day ;
Bid it a moment linger,
Nor fly
Too soon from winter's scowling eye.
OCTOBER 179
The blackbird's song at eventide
And hers who gay ascends,
Telling the heavens far and wide,
Are sweet. But none so blends
As thine
With calm decay and peace divine.
The following four verses are, I think, very pretty,
and not likely to be generally known (I do not know who
wrote them) ; and how we do, all of us, ' love the sweet fall
of the year ' ! — far the most beautiful of all the seasons
in England :—
I wondered this year — for the autumn was in,
The acacias were dark and the linden leaves thin,
And the south wind in coming and going was loud,
And odorous and moist, like the breath of a cloud —
I wondered and said, ' Then the autumn is here.
God knows how I love the sweet fall of the year ;
But the feeling of autumn is not in my brain ;
My God, give me joy in Thine autumn again.'
I woke in the morning, and out in the air
I heard the sweet robin his ditty declare,
And my passion of autumn came down from the skies,
And I leapt from my bed with the tears in my eyes.
Ah ! robin, sweet robin, dost thou know the power
That comes on the heart with the fall of the flower,
The odour of winds, and the shredding of trees,
And the deepening of colour in skies and on seas ?
October 2nd. — How beautiful are these early autumn
mornings ! Here, at any rate, they have qualities un-
equalled all through the long year. The flowers shine
with colour out of the grey mists, as they do at twilight in
the long summer evenings, and the gardens now are all
filled with dewy gossamer.
Two new autumn Crocuses have lately been brought
to my notice ; one, C. speciosus, is very pretty standing up
N2
i8o POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN
Page 106
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AI-modernized reading of the original text
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Autumn mornings and robins — Italian Daturas — The useful ' Myti-
cuttah ' — Nerines — Three Cape greenhouse plants — Sweet Chest-
nuts—Other people's gardening difficulties — Making new beds —
The great Apple time — French White Haricot — The stewing of
chickens and game — Ke-planting Violas and Saxifrages — 'St.
Luke's summer ' — Plants for August, September, and October —
London gardens.
October 1st. — Once more we are back in the month when
the robin sings so much. The robins, I find, are the
tamest of all the birds in a garden ; and as we fork over
the beds, or dig new ones, they follow us all about,
enjoying much the newly turned-up earth. Almost the
prettiest lines in the ' Christian Year ' are about the Robin
Eedbreast, and were written by a friend of Keble's. I
wonder if the ' Christian Year ' is read now, and is as well
known as it used to be ? I will risk it, and recall the two
favourite little verses : —
TO THE EEDBREAST
Unheard in summer's flaring ray,
Pour forth thy notes, sweet singer,
Wooing the stillness of the autumn day ;
Bid it a moment linger,
Nor fly
Too soon from winter's scowling eye.
OCTOBER 179
The blackbird's song at eventide
And hers who gay ascends,
Telling the heavens far and wide,
Are sweet. But none so blends
As thine
With calm decay and peace divine.
The following four verses are, I think, very pretty,
and not likely to be generally known (I do not know who
wrote them) ; and how we do, all of us, ' love the sweet fall
of the year ' ! — far the most beautiful of all the seasons
in England :—
I wondered this year — for the autumn was in,
The acacias were dark and the linden leaves thin,
And the south wind in coming and going was loud,
And odorous and moist, like the breath of a cloud —
I wondered and said, ' Then the autumn is here.
God knows how I love the sweet fall of the year ;
But the feeling of autumn is not in my brain ;
My God, give me joy in Thine autumn again.'
I woke in the morning, and out in the air
I heard the sweet robin his ditty declare,
And my passion of autumn came down from the skies,
And I leapt from my bed with the tears in my eyes.
Ah ! robin, sweet robin, dost thou know the power
That comes on the heart with the fall of the flower,
The odour of winds, and the shredding of trees,
And the deepening of colour in skies and on seas ?
October 2nd. — How beautiful are these early autumn
mornings ! Here, at any rate, they have qualities un-
equalled all through the long year. The flowers shine
with colour out of the grey mists, as they do at twilight in
the long summer evenings, and the gardens now are all
filled with dewy gossamer.
Two new autumn Crocuses have lately been brought
to my notice ; one, C. speciosus, is very pretty standing up
N2
i8o POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN