A MOONLIGHT GARDEN
"How sweetly smells the Honeysuckle
In the hush'd night, as if the world were one
Of utter peace and love and gentleness."
--WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Gardens fanciful of name, a Saint's Garden, a Friendship Garden, have
been planted and cherished. I plant a garden like none other; not an
everyday garden, nor indeed a garden of any day, but a garden for "brave
moonshine," a garden of twilight opening and midnight bloom, a garden of
nocturnal blossoms, a garden of white blossoms, and the sweetest garden
in the world. It is a garden of my dreams, but I know where it lies, and
it now is smiling back at this very harvest moon.
The old house of Hon. Ben. Perley Poore--Indian Hill--at Newburyport,
Massachusetts, has been for many years one of the loveliest of New
England's homes. During his lifetime it had extraordinary charms, for on
the noble hillside, where grew scattered in sunny fields and pastures
every variety of native tree that would winter New England's snow and
ice, there were vast herds of snow-white cows, and flocks of white
sheep, and the splendid oxen were white. White pigeons circled in the
air around ample dove-cotes, and the farmyard poultry were all white; an
enthusiastic chronicler recounts also white peacocks on the wall, but
these are also denied.
On every side were old terraced walls covered with Roses and flowering
vines, banked with shrubs, and standing in beds of old-time flowers
running over with bloom; but behind the house, stretching up the lovely
hillside, was The Garden, and when we entered it, lo! it was a White
Garden with edgings of pure and seemly white Candytuft from the forcing
beds, and flowers of Spring Snowflake and Star of Bethlehem and
Jonquils; and there were white-flowered shrubs of spring, the earliest
Spiraeas and Deutzias; the doubled-flowered Cherries and Almonds and old
favorites, such as Peter's Wreath, all white and wonderfully expressive
of a simplicity, a purity, a closeness to nature.
I saw this lovely farmstead and radiant White Garden first in glowing
sunlight, but far rarer must have been its charm in moonlight; though
the white beasts (as English hinds call cattle) were sleeping in careful
shelter; and the white dog, assured of their safety, was silent; and the
white fowl were in coop and cote; and
"Only the white sheep were sometimes seen
To cross the strips of moon-blanch'd green."
But the White Garden, ah! then the garden truly lived; it was like
lightest snow wreaths bathed in silvery moonshine, with every radiant
flower adoring the moon with wide-open eyes, and pouring forth incense
at her altar. And it was peopled with shadowy forms shaped of pearly
mists and dews; and white night moths bore messages for them from flower
to flower--this garden then was the garden of my dreams.
Thoreau complained to himself that he had not put duskiness enough into
his words in his description of his evening walks. He longed to have the
peculiar and classic severity of his sentences, the color of his style,
tell his readers that his scene was laid at night without saying so in
exact words. I, too, have not written as I wished, by moonlight; I can
tell of moonlight in the garden, but I desire more; I want you to see
and feel this moonlight garden, as did Emily Dickinson her garden by
moonlight:--
"And still within the summer's night
A something so transporting bright
I clap my hands to see."
But perhaps I can no more gather it into words than I can bottle up the
moonlight itself.
This lovely garden, varied in shape, and extending in many and diverse
directions and corners, bears as its crown a magnificent double flower
border over seven hundred feet long; with a broad straight path trimly
edged with Box adown through its centre, and with a flower border twelve
feet wide on either side. This was laid out and planted in 1833 by the
parents of Major Poore, after extended travel in England, and doubtless
under the influences of the beautiful English flower gardens they had
seen. Its length was originally broken halfway up the hill and crowned
at the top of the hill by some formal parterres of careful design, but
these now are removed. There are graceful arches across the path, one of
Honeysuckle on the crown of the hill, from which you look out perhaps
into Paradise--for Indian Hill in June is a very close neighbor to
Paradise; it is difficult to define the boundaries between the two, and
to me it would be hard to choose between them.
Standing in this arch on this fair hill, you can look down the long
flower borders of color and perfume to the old house, lying in the heart
of the trees and vines and flowers. To your left is the hill-sweep,
bearing the splendid grove, an arboretum of great native trees, planted
by Major Poore, and for which he received the prize awarded by his
native state to the finest plantation of trees within its bounds. Turn
from the house and garden, and look through this frame of vines formed
by the arch upon this scene,--the loveliest to me of any on earth,--a
fair New England summer landscape. Fields of rich corn and grain, broken
at times with the gray granite boulders which show what centuries of
grand and sturdy toil were given to make these fertile fields; ample
orchards full of promise of fruit; placid lakes and mill-dams and narrow
silvery rivers, with low-lying red brick mills embowered in trees; dark
forests of sombre Pine and Cedar and Oak; narrow lanes and broad
highways shaded with the livelier green of Elm and Maple and Birch;
gray farm-houses with vast barns; little towns of thrifty white houses
clustered around slender church-spires which, set thickly over this
sunny land, point everywhere to heaven, and tell, as if speaking, the
story of New England's past, of her foundation on love of God, just as
the fields and orchards and highways speak of thrift and honesty and
hard labor; and the houses, such as this of Indian Hill, of kindly
neighborliness and substantial comfort; and as this old garden speaks of
a love of the beautiful, a refinement, an aesthetic and tender side of
New England character which _we_ know, but into which--as Mr. Underwood
says in _Quabbin_, that fine study of New England life--"strangers and
Kiplings cannot enter."
Seven hundred feet of double flower border, fourteen hundred feet of
flower bed, twelve feet wide! "It do swallow no end of plants," says the
gardener.
[Illustration: Chestnut Path in Garden at Indian Hill.]
In spite of the banishing dictum of many artists in regard to white
flowers in a garden, the presence of ample variety of white flowers is
to me the greatest factor in producing harmony and beauty both by night
and day. White seems to be as important a foil in some cases as green.
It may sometimes be given to the garden in other ways than through
flower blossoms, by white marble statues, vases, pedestals, seats.
We all like the approval of our own thoughts by men of genius; with my
love of white flowers I had infinite gratification in these words of
Walter Savage Landor's, written from Florence in regard to a friend's
garden:--
"I like white flowers better than any others; they resemble fair
women. Lily, Tuberose, Orange, and the truly English Syringa are my
heart's delight. I do not mean to say that they supplant the Rose
and Violet in my affections, for these are our first loves, before
we grew _too fond of considering_; and too fond of displaying our
acquaintance with others of sounding titles."
In Japan, where flowers have rank, white flowers are the aristocrats. I
deem them the aristocrats in the gardens of the Occident also.
Having been informed of Tennyson's dislike of white flowers, I have
amused myself by trying to discover in his poems evidence of such
aversion. I think one possibly might note an indifference to white
blossoms; but strong color sense, his love of ample and rich color,
would naturally make him name white infrequently. A pretty line in
_Walking to the Mail_ tells of a girl with "a skin as clean and white as
Privet when it flowers"; and there were White Lilies and Roses and
milk-white Acacias in Maud's garden.
In _The Last Tournament_ the street-ways are depicted as hung with white
samite, and "children sat in white," and the dames and damsels were all
"white-robed in honor of the stainless child." A "swarthy one" cried out
at last:--
"The snowdrop only, flowering thro' the year,
Would make the world as blank as wintertide.
Come!--let us gladden their sad eyes
With all the kindlier colors of the field.
So dame and damsel glitter'd at the feast
Variously gay....
So dame and damsel cast the simple white,
And glowing in all colors, the live grass,
Rose-campion, King-cup, Bluebell, Poppy, glanced
About the revels."
[Illustration: Foxgloves in Lower Garden at Indian Hill.]
In the garden borders is a commonplace little plant, gray of foliage,
with small, drooping, closed flowers of an indifferently dull tint, you
would almost wonder at its presence among its gay garden fellows. Let us
glance at it in the twilight, for it seems like the twilight, a soft,
shaded gray; but the flowers have already lifted their heads and opened
their petals, and they now seem like the twilight clouds of palest pink
and lilac. It is the Night-scented Stock, and lavishly through the still
night it pours forth its ineffable fragrance. A single plant, thirty
feet from an open window, will waft its perfume into the room. This
white Stock was a favorite flower of Marie Antoinette, under its French
name the Julienne. "Night Violets," is its appropriate German name.
Hesperis! the name shows its habit. Dame's Rocket is our title for this
cheerful old favorite of May, which shines in such snowy beauty at
night, and throws forth such a compelling fragrance. It is rarely found
in our gardens, but I have seen it growing wild by the roadside in
secluded spots; not in ample sheets of growth like Bouncing Bet, which
we at first glance thought it was; it is a shyer stray, blossoming
earlier than comely Betsey.
The old-fashioned single, or slightly double, country Pink, known as
Snow Pink or Star Pink, was often used as an edging for small borders,
and its bluish green, almost gray, foliage was quaint in effect and
beautiful in the moonlight. When seen at night, the reason for the
folk-name is evident. Last summer, on a heavily clouded night in June,
in a cottage garden at West Hampton, borders of this Snow Pink shone out
of the darkness with a phosphorescent light, like hoar-frost, on every
grassy leaf; while the hundreds of pale pink blossoms seemed softly
shining stars. It was a curious effect, almost wintry, even in
midsummer. The scent was wafted down the garden path, and along the
country road, like a concentrated essence, rather than a fleeting breath
of flowers. One of these cottage borders is shown on page 292, and I
have named it from these lines from _The Garden that I Love_:--
"A running ribbon of perfumed snow
Which the sun is melting rapidly."
At sundown the beautiful white Day Lily opens and gives forth all night
an overwhelming sweetness; I have never seen night moths visiting it,
though I know they must, since a few seed capsules always form. In the
border stand--
"Clumps of sunny Phlox
That shine at dusk, and grow more deeply sweet."
These, with white Petunias, are almost unbearably cloying in their heavy
odor. It is a curious fact that some of these night-scented flowers are
positively offensive in the daytime; try your _Nicotiana affinis_ next
midday--it outpours honeyed sweetness at night, but you will be glad it
withholds its perfume by day. The plants of Nicotiana were first
introduced to England for their beauty, sweet scent, and medicinal
qualities, not to furnish smoke. Parkinson in 1629 writes of Tobacco,
"With us it is cherished for medicinal qualities as for the beauty of
its flowers," and Gerarde, in 1633, after telling of the beauty, etc.,
says that the dried leaves are "taken in a pipe, set on fire, the smoke
suckt into the stomach, and thrust forth at the noshtrils."
Snake-root, sometimes called Black Cohosh (_Cimicifuga racemosa_), is
one of the most stately wild flowers, and a noble addition to the
garden. A picture of a single plant gives little impression of its
dignity of habit, its wonderfully decorative growth; but the succession
of pure white spires, standing up several feet high at the edge of a
swampy field, or in a garden, partake of that compelling charm which
comes from tall trees of slender growth, from repetition and
association, such as pine trees, rows of bayonets, the gathered masts of
a harbor, from stalks of corn in a field, from rows of Foxglove--from
all "serried ranks." I must not conceal the fact of its horrible odor,
which might exile it from a small garden.
[Illustration: Dame's Rocket.]
Among my beloved white flowers, a favorite among those who are all
favorites, is the white Columbine. Some are double, but the common
single white Columbines picture far better the derivation of their
name; they are like white doves, they seem almost an emblematic flower.
William Morris says:--
"Be very shy of double flowers; choose the old Columbine where the
clustering doves are unmistakable and distinct, not the double one,
where they run into mere tatters. Don't be swindled out of that
wonder of beauty, a single Snowdrop; there is no gain and plenty of
loss in the double one."
There are some extremists, such as Dr. Forbes Watson, who condemn all
double flowers. One thing in the favor of double blooms is that their
perfume is increased with their petals. Double Violets, Roses, and Pinks
seem as natural now as single flowers of their kinds. I confess a
distinct aversion to the thought of a double Lilac. I have never seen
one, though the Ranoncule, said to be very fine, costs but forty cents a
plant, and hence must be much grown.
[Illustration: Snake-root.]
There is a curious influence of flower-color which I can only explain by
giving an example. We think of Iris, Gladiolus, Lupine, and even
Foxglove and Poppy as flowers of a warm and vivid color; so where we see
them a pure white, they have a distinct and compelling effect on us,
pleasing, but a little eerie; not a surprise, for we have always known
the white varieties, yet not exactly what we are wonted to. This has
nothing of the grotesque, as is produced by the albino element in the
animal world; it is simply a trifle mysterious. White Pansies and White
Violets possess this quality to a marked degree. I always look and look
again at growing White Violets. A friend says: "Do you think they will
speak to you?" for I turn to them with such an expectancy of something.
The "everlasting" white Pea is a most satisfactory plant by day or
night. Hedges covered with it are a pure delight. Do not fear to plant
it with liberal hand. Be very liberal, too, in your garden of white
Foxgloves. Even if the garden be small, there is room for many graceful
spires of the lovely bells to shine out everywhere, piercing up through
green foliage and colored blooms of other plants. They are not only
beautiful, but they are flowers of sentiment and association, endeared
to childhood, visited of bees, among the best beloved of old-time
favorites. They consort well with nearly every other flower, and
certainly with every other color, and they seem to clarify many a
crudely or dingily tinted flower; they are as admirable foils as they
are principals in the garden scheme. In England, where they readily grow
wild, they are often planted at the edge of a wood, or to form vistas in
a copse. I doubt whether they would thrive here thus planted, but they
are admirable when set in occasional groups to show in pure whiteness
against a hedge. I say in occasional groups, for the Foxglove should
never be planted in exact rows. The White Iris, the Iris of the
Florentine Orris-root, is one of the noblest plants of the whole world;
its pure petals are truly hyaline like snow-ice, like translucent white
glass; and the indescribably beautiful drooping lines of the flowers are
such a contrast with the defiant erectness of the fresh green leaves.
Small wonder that it was a sacred flower of the Greeks. It was called
by the French _la flambe blanche_, a beautiful poetic title--the White
Torch of the Garden.
A flower of mystery, of wonderment to children, was the Evening
Primrose; I knew the garden variety only with intimacy. Possibly the
wild flower had similar charms and was equally weird in the gloaming,
but it grew by country roadsides, and I was never outside our garden
limits after nightfall, so I know not its evening habits. We had in our
garden a variety known as the California Evening Primrose--a giant
flower as tall as our heads. My mother saw its pale yellow stars shining
in the early evening in a cottage garden on Cape Ann, and was there
given, out of the darkness, by a fellow flower lover, the seeds which
have afforded to us every year since so much sentiment and pleasure. The
most exquisite description of the Evening Primrose is given by Margaret
Deland in her _Old Garden_:--
"There the primrose stands, that as the night
Begins to gather, and the dews to fall,
Flings wide to circling moths her twisted buds,
That shine like yellow moons with pale cold glow,
And all the air her heavy fragrance floods,
And gives largess to any winds that blow.
Here in warm darkness of a night in June, ... children came
To watch the primrose blow. Silently they stood
Hand clasped in hand, in breathless hush around,
And saw her slyly doff her soft green hood
And blossom--with a silken burst of sound."
[Illustration: The Title-page of Parkinson's _Paradisi in Solis_,
etc.]
The wild Primrose opens slowly, hesitatingly, it trembles open, but the
garden Primrose flares open.
The Evening Primrose is usually classed with sweet-scented flowers, but
that exact observer, E. V. B., tells of its "repulsive smell. At night
if the stem be shaken, or if the flower-cup trembles at the touch of a
moth as it alights, out pours the dreadful odor." I do not know that any
other garden flower opens with a distinct sound. Owen Meredith's poem,
_The Aloe_, tells that the Aloe opened with such a loud explosive report
that the rooks shrieked and folks ran out of the house to learn whence
came the sound.
The tall columns of the Yucca or Adam's Needle stood like shafts of
marble against the hedge trees of the Indian Hill garden. Their
beautiful blooms are a miniature of those of the great Century Plant. In
the daytime the Yucca's blossoms hang in scentless, greenish white
bells, but at night these bells lift up their heads and expand with
great stars of light and odor--a glorious plant. Around their spire of
luminous bells circle pale night moths, lured by the rich fragrance.
Even by moonlight we can see the little white detached fibres at the
edge of the leaves, which we are told the Mexican women used as thread
to sew with. And we children used to pull off the strong fibres and put
them in a needle and sew with them too.
When I see those Yuccas in bloom I fully believe that they are the
grandest flowers of our gardens; but happily, I have a short garden
memory, so I mourn not the Yucca when I see the _Anemone japonica_ or
any other noble white garden child.
[Illustration: Yucca, like White Marble against the Evergreens.]
Here at the end of the garden walk is an arbor dark with the shadow of
great leaves, such as Gerarde calls "leaves round and big like to a
buckler." But out of that shadowed background of leaf on leaf shine
hundreds of pure, pale stars of sweetness and light,--a true flower of
the night in fragrance, beauty, and name,--the Moon-vine. It is a flower
of sentiment, full of suggestion.
Did you ever see a ghost in a garden? I do so wish I could. If I had the
placing of ghosts, I would not make them mope round in stuffy old
bedrooms and garrets; but would place one here in this arbor in my
Moonlight Garden. But if I did, I have no doubt she would take up a hoe
or a watering-pot, and proceed to do some very unghostlike
deed--perhaps, grub up weeds. Longfellow had a ghost in his garden (page
142). He must have mourned when he found it was only a clothes-line and
a long night-gown.
It was the favorite tale of a Swedish old lady who lived to be
ninety-six years old, of a discovery of her youth, in the year 1762, of
strange flashes of light which sparkled out of the flowers of the
Nasturtium one sultry night. I suppose the average young woman of the
average education of the day and her country might not have heeded or
told of this, but she was the daughter of Linnaeus, the great botanist,
and had not the everyday education.
Then great Goethe saw and wrote of similar flashes of light around
Oriental Poppies; and soon other folk saw them also--naturalists and
everyday folk. Usually yellow flowers were found to display this
light--Marigolds, orange Lilies, and Sunflowers. Then the daughter of
Linnaeus reported another curious discovery; she certainly turned her
nocturnal rambles in her garden to good account. She averred she had
set fire to a certain gas which formed and hung around the Fraxinella,
and that the ignition did not injure the plant. This assertion was met
with open scoffing and disbelief, which has never wholly ceased; yet the
popular name of Gas Plant indicates a widespread confidence in this
quality of the Fraxinella and it is easily proved true.
Another New England name for the Fraxinella, given me from the owner of
the herb-garden at Elmhurst, is "Spitfire Plant," because the seed-pods
sizzle so when a lighted match is applied to them.
The Fraxinella is a sturdy, hardy flower. There are some aged plants in
old New England gardens; I know one which has outlived the man who
planted it, his son, grandson, and great-grandson. The Fraxinella bears
a tall stem with Larkspur-like flowers of white or a curious dark pink,
and shining Ash-like leaves, whence its name, the little Ash. It is one
of the finest plants of the old-fashioned garden; fine in bloom, fine in
habit of growth, and it even has decorative seed vessels. It is as ready
of scent as anything in the garden; if you but brush against leaf, stem,
flower, or seed, as you walk down the garden path, it gives forth a
penetrating perfume, that you think at first is like Lemon, then like
Anise, then like Lavender; until you finally decide it is like nothing
save Fraxinella. As with the blossoms of the Calycanthus shrub, you can
never mistake the perfume, when once you know it, for anything else. It
is a scent of distinction. Through this individuality it is, therefore,
full of associations, and correspondingly beloved.
[Illustration: Fraxinella.]