Identifier: sundialsrosesofy00earl (find matches)
Title: Sun dials and roses of yesterday; garden delights which are here displayed in every truth and are moreover regarded as emblems
Year: 1902 (1900s)
Authors: Earle, Alice Morse, 1851-1911
Subjects: Sundials Roses Rosicrucians
Publisher: New York London : Macmillan & co., ltd.
Contributing Library: Boston College Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
ot a singleword of my thought of a sun-dial: — **Gray dial-stone, I fain would know What motive placed thee hereWhere darkly opes the frequent grave And rests the frequent bier ;Ah, bootless creeps the dusky shade Slow oer thy figured plain :When mortal life has passed away Time counts his hours in vain. ** I think of those that raised thee here. Of those beneath thee laid.And ponder if thou wert not raised In mockery oer the dead.Ah, never sure could mortal man, Whatere his age or clime.Thus raise in mocking oer the dead The stone that measures time. There still stands at the old home of Hugh Milleran ornate dial-stone (it will be noted that he neversays sun-dial) which he cut for amusement in aperiod of recovery from illness ; it is near anotherdial, an ancient one which he dug out of the earthwhen he was a boy, and which had originally beenset up in the old Castle garden of Cromarty. Bythe side of this ancient dial Miller first saw theyoung girl who afterward became his wife. The
Text Appearing After Image:
Angel with Sun-dial on Cathedral, Genoa, Italy. The Charm and Sentiment of Sun-dials 15 dial-verses were written in early youth ; an age whenmost poets love to write upon death and gloomymoral lessons. Perhaps had he written them afterhe met his sweetheart, they might have been morenatural. However, the chief reason why I do notlike them is that they are not poetry ; they form aperfect example of Dr. Edward Everett Hales amus-ing method given in his advice How to Write, anexercise of capping verses. A true lover of Charles Lamb asserts that he everfinds in Lamb the best thoughts on any subject —whatever it may be ; thus, upon sun-dials he wouldbelieve that the ideal sentiment was expressed byLamb in his Essay on the Old Benchers of the InnerTemple. It is indeed inexpressibly fine in poeticfeeling — far beyond any poem we have; and de-serves quotation in full by all who write on dials : — What an antique air had the now almost effaced sun-dials with their moral inscriptions, seem

Note About Images