Pot-pourri from a Surrey garden

Two or three days ago the lilacs were quite beautiful, having responded well to last year's pruning ; now they are faded and scentless, and almost ugly. The German Irises, too, were blooming well, with long healthy stalks. I find that what helps them here is to grow the small pieces one buys from the nurseryman for two or three years in rich garden soil, where they grow quickly, making roots and leaves. After that I move them into some dry border facing east or south, and I find that they then flower as well as one MAY joi can possibly desire. The beautiful pale-blue Anemone apennina is now nodding its little blue heads under my big trees. In the far-away days of my childhood — it must have been in the 'Forties — a really typical man-of- the-world presented my mother with four well-bound volumes of Mrs. Hemans' poems. Imagine any man giving such a present now ! And yet she wrote some pretty things, of which the following is a specimen, and certainly it is quite as good as many modern flower- poems : — TO THE BLUE ANEMONE Flower of starry clearness bright, Quivering urn of coloured light, Hast thou drawn thy cup's rich dye From the intenseness of the sky ? From a long, long fervent gaze Through the year's first golden days Up that blue and silent deep Where, like things of sculptured sleep, Alabaster clouds repose With the sunshine on their snows ? Thither was thy heart's love turning, Like a censer ever burning, Till the purple heavens in thee Set their smile, anemone ? Or can those warm tints be caught Each from some quick glow of thought ? So much of bright soul there seems In thy bendings and thy gleams, So much thy sweet life resembles That which feels and weeps and trembles, I could deem thee spirit-filled As a reed by music thrilled When thy being 1 behold In each loving breath unfold, Or, like woman's willowy form, Shrink before the gathering storm, I could ask a voice from thee Delicate anemone. 102 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN Flower, thou seem'st not born to die, With thy radiant purity, But to melt in air away, Mingling with the soft spring day. When the crystal heavens are still, And faint azure veils each hill, And the lime-leaf does not move, Save to songs that stir the grove, And earth all glorified is seen, As imaged in some lake serene — Then thy vanishing should be, Pure and meek anemone. Flower, the laurel still may shed Brightness round the victor's head, And the rose in beauty's hair Still its festal glory wear, And the willow leaves droop o'er Brows which love sustains no more ; But thy living rays refined, Thou, the trembler of the wind, Thou, the spiritual flower, Sentient of each breeze and shower, Thou, rejoicing in the skies, And transpierced with all their dyes, Breathing vase, with light o'erflowing, Gem-like to thy centre glowing— Thou the poet's type shall be, Flower of soul, anemone.