GARDEN VERSE - What is a Garden by Arkell

What is a garden?

            Goodness knows!

You’ve got a garden,

            I suppose:

To one it is a piece of ground

For which some gravel must be found.

To some, those seeds that must be sown,

To some a lawn that must be mown.

To some a ton of Cheddar rocks;

To some it means a window box;

To some, who dare not pick a flower-

A man, at eighteen pence an hour.

To some, it is a silly jest

About the latest garden pest;

To some, a haven where they find

Forgetfulness and peace of mind. . .

What is a garden

            Large or small

‘Tis just a garden

            After all.

Reginald Arkell

“What Is a Garden”

Green Fingers (1935)

GARDEN VERSE - Love of Garden by Helps

"As for our love of gardens, it is the last refuge of art in the minds and souls of many Englishmen; if we did not care for gardens, I hardly know what in the way of beauty we should care for.

                                                                                          Sir Arthur Helps
                                                                                          Companion of My Solitude (1851)

GARDEN VERSE - Give A Man by Arthur Young

"Give a man secure possession of a bleak rock, and he will turn it into a garden; give him nine years’ lease of a garden, and he will convert it into a desert."

                                                                         

                                                                        Arthur Young

                                                                        Travels in France (1792)

GARDEN VERSE - Digging

Digging

To-day I think

Only with scents, - scents dead leaves yield,

And bracken, and wild carrot’s seed,

And the square mustard field;

Odours that rise

When the spade wounds the root of tree,

Rose, currant, raspberry, or goutweed,

Rhubarb or celery;

The smoke’s smell, too,

Flowing from where a bonfire burns

The dead, the waste, the dangerous,

And all to sweetness turns.

It is enough

To smell, to crumble the dark earth,

While the robin sings over again

Sad songs of Autumn mirth.

                                                                Edward Thomas
                                                                 (1878-1917)

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GARDEN VERSE - A Garden is by Thoreau

“A garden is but Nature debauched.”

                                                 

                                         Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

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GARDEN VERSE - If You Wish To Be Happy

“If you wish to be happy for a day, get drunk;

If you wish to be happy for a week, kill a pig;

If you wish to be happy for a month, get married;

If you wish to be happy for ever and ever, make a garden.”

                                                Chinese Proverb 

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GARDEN VERSE - Adam, The First Gardener

A verse by Rudyard Kipling about Adam, the first gardener.

Oh,  Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees

That half a proper gardener’s work is done upon his knees,

So when your work is finished, you can wash your hands and pray

For the Glory of the Garden that it may not pass away!

                                    Rudyard Kipling

                                    The Glory of the Garden (1911)

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