Page:Walks in the Black Country and its green border-land.pdf/317

Rh all aglow in May with their gossamer blossoms. Four hundred thousand pots of geraniums supply only one of the contingents of beauty which the floral world contributes, under subsidy, to this little earthly elysium. All were now gone except the evergreen borders, but acres of undulating lawn were dotted or globed with flower-beds leafless and bare, looking like mammalia of Nature, which had nursed each its floral offspring to the full beauty of its sweet-breathing bloom. The grand trees, standing singly or in groups, seemed to cling with loving attachment to the soft, green surface beneath which mirrored their out-spreading glory; for while their heads towered up into the sky with proud aspiration, all their arms drooped towards the earth, as if essaying to lift it upward to show it to the sun. This was a remarkable characteristic of them all, and I never saw the like before. They all clung to the green sward in this way—not only the purple beeches, limes, and elms, but the stout and gnarly oak, which seldom yields to the influences that affect other trees of more supple nerve and muscle. Here it also droops its brawny arms, and its great strong hands feel the face of the lawn for many yards round, as a giant father would feel the face of his sleeping infant. Had a discussion with Capern on this matter in which we reversed positions. He argued as a practical man and I as a poet, a novel change