187
All strait and smooth, and like a great green wall!
My poor old Lady many a time would come
And tell me where to shear, for she had played
In childhood under them, and 'twas her pride
To keep them in their beauty. Plague I say,
On their new-fangled whimsies! we shall have
A modern shrubbery here stuck full of firs
And your pert poplar trees;—I could as soon
Have plough'd my father's grave as cut them down!
STRANGER.
But 'twill be lighter and more chearful now,
A fine smooth turf, and with a gravel road
Round for the carriage,—now it suits my taste.
I like a shrubbery too, it looks so fresh,
And then there's some variety about it.
In spring the lilac and the gueldres rose,
And the laburnum with its golden flowers
Waving in the wind. And when the autumn comes
The bright red berries of the mountain-ash,
With firs enough in winter to look green,
My poor old Lady many a time would come
And tell me where to shear, for she had played
In childhood under them, and 'twas her pride
To keep them in their beauty. Plague I say,
On their new-fangled whimsies! we shall have
A modern shrubbery here stuck full of firs
And your pert poplar trees;—I could as soon
Have plough'd my father's grave as cut them down!
STRANGER.
But 'twill be lighter and more chearful now,
A fine smooth turf, and with a gravel road
Round for the carriage,—now it suits my taste.
I like a shrubbery too, it looks so fresh,
And then there's some variety about it.
In spring the lilac and the gueldres rose,
And the laburnum with its golden flowers
Waving in the wind. And when the autumn comes
The bright red berries of the mountain-ash,
With firs enough in winter to look green,
