A tangle of broad, green leaves,

All over the garden border;

A mass of wonderful blooms,

Parading their gay disorder.

Petals of sunset and flame,

Their orient, velvet-soft splendor

Aflare on long, sinuous stems,

Aromatic, pale-tinted and slender.

Trespassers wilful and bold,

Wherever they choose they wander,

Spendthrift of color and scent—

Made but to riot and squander.

E’en to the court of the rose,

Their eager, loose tendrils outreaching;

Unable to guess at her pride,

Or to care for her thorn’s sharp teaching.

Yet such is their charm and delight,

One pauses, half ready to flout them;

For O, at the mid-summer’s height,

What were the garden without them?

—Lulu Whedon Mitchell.