Chapter VI

Alas! the days of the crimson phlox and of the
proud roses that brightened its gates are far
away, but however faded and withered it may
be--what matters!--I love our garden still with
all my heart.

Its distress is sometimes dearer and sweeter to
me than was its gladness in the burning summer
days. Oh! the last perfume slowly rendered up by
its last flower on its last mosses!

I wandered this evening among its winding
pathways, to touch with my earnest fingers all
its plants; and falling on my knees amid the
trembling grasses, I gave a long kiss to its damp
and heavy soil.

And now let it die, and the mist and night come
and spread over all; all my being seems to
have entered into our garden's ruin, and, by
understanding its death, I shall learn to know my
own.