• Leslie's Monthly (June, 1903)   "An Old-Fashioned Garden"   A poem in 12 verses. With an illustration by Mills Thompson. p 204.  [HARPER]

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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.

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