Gargoyles

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 I B