dew fall
upon them in the drought, and say to the south wind, in frost--"Come,
thou south, and breathe upon my garden, that the spices of it may flow
out." This you would think a great thing? And do you think it not a
greater thing, that all this (and how much more than this!) you _can_
do for fairer flowers than these--flowers that could bless you for
having blessed them, and will love you for having loved them;--flowers
that have thoughts like yours, and lives like yours; which, once saved,
you save forever? Is this only a little power? Far among the
moorlands and the rocks,--far in the darkness of the terrible
streets,--these feeble florets are lying, with all their fresh leaves
torn, and their stems broken--will you never go down to them, nor set
them in order in their little fragrant beds, nor fence them in their
trembling from the fierce wind? Shall morning follow morning, for you,
but not for them; and the dawn rise to watch, far away, those frantic
Dances of Death,[7] but no dawn rise to breathe upon these living banks
of wild violet, and woodbine, and rose; nor call to you, through your
casement,--call (not giving you the name of the English poet's lady,
but the name of Dante's great Matilda, who on the edge of happy Lethe,
stood wreathing flowers with flowers), saying:--

"Come into the garden, Maud,
For the black bat, night, has flown,
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad
And the musk of the roses blown."

Will you not go down among them?--among those sweet living things,
whose new courage, sprung from the earth with the deep color of heaven
upon it, is starting up in strength of goodly spire; and whose purity,
washed from the dust, is opening, bud by bud, into the flower of
promise;--and still they turn to you and for you, "The Larkspur
listens--I hear, I hear! And the Lily whispers--I wait."

95. Did you notice that I missed two lines when I read you that first
stanza; and think that I had forgotten them? Hear them now:--

"Come into the garden, Maud,
For the black bat, night, has flown.
Come into the garden, Maud,
I am here at the gate, alone."

Who is it, think you, who stands at the gate of this sweeter garden,
alone, waiting for you? Did you ever hear, not of a Maude but a
Madeleine who went down to her garden in the dawn and found one waiting
at the gate, whom she supposed to be the gardener? Have you not sought
Him often;--sought Him in vain, all through the n