Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote a poem about the garden at the end of the year. This seems to be an appropriate time to share it with you.

 A spirit haunts the year’s last hours
 Dwelling amid these yellowing bowers:
 To himself he talks:
 But at eventide, listening earnestly,
 At his work you may hear him sob and sigh
 In the walks;
 Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks
 Of mouldering flowers:
 Heavily hangs the broad sunflower
 Over its grave in the earth so chilly;
 Heavily hangs the holly hock,
 Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.

 The air is damp and hushed and close,
 As a sick man’s room where he taketh repose
 An hour before death;
 My very heart faints and my whole soul grieves
 At the moist rich smell of the rotting leaves
 And the breath
 Of the fading edges of box beneath,
 And the year’s last rose.
 Heavily hangs the broad sunflower
 Over its grave in the earth so chilly;
 Heavily hangs the hollyhock,
 Heavily hangs the tiger lily.