Page:Japanese Gardens (Taylor).djvu/414

288 the richest flower land I have ever known. Glorious Campions, fiery red, there may be, too, before the Maples, with the frost, turn the world into a pageant of colour, and make even gay things dull by contrast. The streams run red as blood with their fallen leaves. The land is dressed in its rich brocade of autumn.

The Autumn comes from the West, the Japanese say, and on Western-sloping hills there are the Maples set to catch the very last gleam. All the poets have a word to tell us about it, for next to Spring it is their favourite theme. One says—

November has brought the Chrysanthemum, and its fête day, of Emperor and common people, but the true Autumn flowers “are the Maple leaves, little fiery hands of babies, loved and cherished by a nation, themselves still delightfully, divinely, children.”