from Leslie's Monthly
An Old-Fashioned Garden
by Ellis Parker Butler
Strange, is it not? She was making her garden,
Planting the old-fashioned flowers that day --
Bleeding-hearts tender and bachelors-buttons --
Spreading the seeds in the old-fashioned way.
Just in the old fashioned way, too, our quarrel
Grew until, angrily, she set me free --
Planting, indeed, bleeding hearts for the two of us, --
Ordaining bachelor's buttons for me.
Envoi
Strange, was it not? But seeds planted in anger
Sour in the earth and, ere long, a decay
Withered the bleeding hearts, blighted the buttons,
And -- we were wed -- in the old-fashioned way.
