Excerpt from A Garden in Venice The Lord God planted a garden In the first white days of the world; And set there an angel warden, In garments of light enfurled. So near to the peace of Heaven, That the hawk might nest with the wren; For there in the cool of the even, God walked with the first of men. And I dream that these garden closes, With their shade and their sun-flecked sod, And their lilies and bowers of roses, Were laid by the hand of God. The kiss of the sun for pardon, The song of the birds for mirth - One is nearer God's heart in a garden Than anywhere else on earth. Dorothy Gurney. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.