. Sun dials and roses of yesterday; garden delights which are here displayed in every truth and are moreover regarded as emblems . compared with the simple altar-like struc-ture and silent heart-language of the old dial. i6 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday It stood as the garden god of Christian gardens. Whyis it almost everywhere vanished? If its business use besuspended by more elaborate inventions, its moral uses, itsbeauty, might have pleaded for its continuance. It spokeof moderate labours, of pleasures not protracted after sun-set, of temperance and goodhours. It was the primitiveclock,
. Sun dials and roses of yesterday; garden delights which are here displayed in every truth and are moreover regarded as emblems . compared with the simple altar-like struc-ture and silent heart-language of the old dial. i6 Sun-dials and Roses of Yesterday It stood as the garden god of Christian gardens. Whyis it almost everywhere vanished? If its business use besuspended by more elaborate inventions, its moral uses, itsbeauty, might have pleaded for its continuance. It spokeof moderate labours, of pleasures not protracted after sun-set, of temperance and goodhours. It was the primitiveclock, the horologe of thefirst world. Adam couldscarce have missed it inParadise. It was the meas-ure appropriate for sweetplants and flowers to springby, for the birds to apportiontheir silver warblings by, forflocks to pasture and be ledto fold by. The shepherd carved it out quaintly in thesun,and turning philosopherby the very occupation, pro-vided it with mottoes moretouching than tombstones. I have everbeen struckwith one expression ofLamb in writing of thesun-dial; he called it asimple altar-like struc-ture. It is partly the. Dantes Dante Gabriel Rossetti. classic shape of the sun-dial — its altar-like form —which charms us; and a proof to me of the wisdomof simplicity in outline for every dial-pillar is in thefact that the simpler forms evoke the greater senti-ment. The Charm and Sentiment of Sun-dials 17 I find that half the folk who speak of sun-dialslike to quote Austin Dobsons verses on a sun-dial,and worthy of quotation they are, and full ofsentiment: — ** Tis an old dial dark with many a Summer crowned with drifting orchard in the Autumn with the yellow white in Winter like a marble tomb. And round about its gray, time-eaten brow Lean letters speak — a worn and shattered row : — * I am a Shade — a Shadovve too, art thou. I mark the Time. Saye ! Gossip ! Dost thou soe .? The last couplet has been used as a motto onsevera
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectsundial, bookyear1902
