Silly gardener! summer goes, And winter comes with pinching toes, When in the garden bare and brown You must lay your barrow down. Well now, and while the summer stays, To profit by these garden days O how much wiser you would be To play at Indian wars with me! VIII Historical Associations Dear Uncle Jim, this garden ground That now you smoke your pipe around, Has seen immortal actions done And valiant battles lost and won. Here we had best on tip-toe tread, While I for safety march ahead, For this is that enchanted ground Where all who loiter slumber sound. Here is the sea, here is the sand, Here is simple Shepherd's Land, Here are the fairy hollyhocks, And there are Ali Baba's rocks. But yonder, see! apart and high, Frozen Siberia lies; where I, With Robert Bruce and William Tell, Was bound by an enchanter's spell. ENVOYS I To Willie and Henrietta If two may read aright These rhymes of old delight And house and garden play, You two, my cousins, and you only, may. You in a garden green With me were king and queen, Were hunter, soldier, tar, And all the thousand things that children are. Now in the elders' seat We rest with quiet feet, And from the window-bay We watch the children, our successors, play. "Time was," the golden head Irrevocably said; But time which one can bind, While flowing fast away, leaves love behind. II To My Mother You too, my mother, read my rhymes For love of unforgotten times, And you may chance to hear once more The little feet along the floor. III To Auntie "Chief of our aunts"--not only I, But all your dozen of nurselings cry-- "What did the other children do? And what were childhood, wanting you?"