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New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume 65, Issue 6, 15 December 1942, Page 381

The Pass of the Flowers

WITH the drifting of the leaves, my flowers are passing—some days, slowly and imperceptibly, on others suddenly and completely. There have been times lately when I could , scarcely find one perfect blossom for my breakfast table. This is important to me if I would face the day with courage, and that is why, whenever. possible, I carry my breakfast tray to this sheltered corner of my garden. Here, in the early summer, the pink briar roses cluster, and sometimes, to my infinite delight, a freshly-opened bud will fall across my table. It is with eager steps I seek my breakfastparlour through the summer days, never knowing what fresh treasure I shall' find. Sometimes it would seem as though a star had fallen in the night, and broken into little bits, strewing my bricks of red with blue forget-me-nots. And later in the season, when the lavender comeslavender and bumble

bees, and butterflies white and blue— I start the day with a song on my lips, and the glow of morning in my heart. The flowers are passing with the year, but today, in this corner, the air is warm. Again I share in the poetry of the garden, and the little voices of the summer are with me. Today I hear the music of the trees, for I am kissed by the sun, and the winter is still far, distant. But the joy in the sun of a dying year must always be brief and mingled with sadness. Even as I write, there is a sudden chill in the air, the robin’s song has suddenly ceased, and the empty silence fills me with loneliness loneliness and memories. Yet the old year passes into the new, and we await the joy of little things new-born ... I know that there is no death. Those that have passed from sight are just asleep, to wake again, like the trees and the blossoms in God’s own springtime.