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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 9, Issue 7 (October 1, 1934)

In an Old Garden

In an Old Garden.

It is warm here in the sun. I turn my back to the verandah post and the faint, fresh breeze from the sea, and try to concentrate on my notes. I wish I knew more about birds—dozens of them are whistling and twittering in the dark macrocarpas, and I would love to recognise them by name. Their songs, also, are definitely individual. I listen attentively, then try to imitate a phrase or two. Disgusted with my rasping effort, I set myself to listen again. The sea supplies a sullen bass to their clear treble, and now and again the bleat of sheep punctuates the rhythm.

A few minutes since, I strolled across the weed-grown drive to inspect some flowering shrubs which grow bravely where a large garden once was. I greeted japonica and flowering currant, and applauded the gay show of rhododendron and camellia. All pink, you see—these remains of a proud past. Bulbs lift their green spears beside the drive-way, and I found violets sheltering near a hedge. My fingers are still scented with crushed rosemary— “that's for remembrance,” and, suddenly saddened, I think of other old homes I have known, and wonder about the past of this one.

Who planned this garden, lying to the sun, bounded by its curve of drive-way, backed by shelter trees and the plumes of bamboo? Who studied seedsmen's catalogues and sent away for shrubs and plants? Who dug and hoed and weeded? And now some perversity of fate has left this beloved garden uncared for. Perhaps hard times and pressing creditors forced the giving up of the old homestead; children who were to inherit and “carry on” may have gone away or died; illness may have stricken the pair of hands which loved to tend flowers. Whatever the cause, it must have been a sad one.

Old homes are miserable, skulking things, with their blind eyes of windows through which the curious gaze on peeling wall-papers and dusty floors, their rotting woodwork and crumbling stone; but old gardens are sweet with an ancient beauty, and soft with the dew of glimmering tears. The stranger walks pitifully there, and the seasons, each in turn, clothe them with aspects of their former loveliness.

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