Alfred, Lord Tennyson used a garden metaphor when he wrote about an old year coming to a close. He called his poem, "Song."
A spirit haunts the year's last hours
Dwelling amid those yellowing bowers:
To himself he talks;
For at eventide, listening earnestly,
At his work you may hear him so and sigh
In the walks;
Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks
Of the mouldering flowers:
Heavily hangs the broad sunflower
Over its grave in the earth so chilly;
Heavily hangs the hollyhock,
Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.
The air is damp, and hushed, and close
As a sick man's room when 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.
Tennyson's poem is like a dirge for last year's flowers. However, since the flower garden is a renewable resource, we can look forward to the New Year and the flowers yet to come.