GARGOYLES
Nec tamen illa mihi dextra deducta paterna
Fragrantem Assyrio venit odore domum
Sed furtiva dedit muta munuscula nocte.
TO LOLA BENTROVATA.
Go sunnily through my garden of flowers, dear
maiden 0’ mine, and once in a while you shall
come upon some grotesque Chinese dragon with
huge and hideous eyes leering round the delight of
the daffodils; or it may be some rude Priapus look-
ing over the calm rock-shadowed beauty of the
lake; or even, hanging amid the glory of elm or
beech, an human skeleton, whose bones shall
rattle in the breeze, and from whose eyeless sockets
shall glare—?—lI dare not bid you guess what evil
knowledge.
Then, an you be wise, you shall know that a
wise gardener wisely put them there. For every
garden is the world; and in the world these are.
So every cathedral is the world, and the archi-
tect of Notre Dame deserved his heaven.
To me life and death have most often appeared
in majesty and beauty, in solemnity and horror; in
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