Long doubt, and scarcely to be ended till you wake
from the memory of those days when the path was clear, and chase
that phantom of a muslin sleeve that once weighed warm upon your
arm.
Wild as that, the nighest woodland of a deserted home in England,
but without its sweet sadness, is the sumptuous garden of Damascus.
Forest trees, tall and stately enough if you could see their lofty
crests, yet lead a tussling life of it below, with their branches
struggling against strong numbers of bushes and wilful shrubs. The
shade upon the earth is black as night. High, high above your
head, and on every side all down to the ground, the thicket is
hemmed in and choked up by the interlacing boughs that droop with
the weight of roses, and load the slow air with their damask
breath. {45} There are no other flowers. Here and there, there
are patches of ground made clear from the cover, and these are
either carelessly planted with some common and useful vegetable, or
else are left free to the wayward ways of Nature, and bear rank
weeds, moist-looking and cool to the eyes, and freshening the sense
with their earthy and bitter fragrance. There is a lane opened
through the thicket, so broad in some places that you can pass
along side by side; in some so narrow (the shrubs are for ever
encroaching) that you ought, if you can, to go on the first and
hold back the bough of the rose-tree.
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