The Glory of the Garden

Cornflower's luscious photographs and challenging quotation show a wonderful side of garden flowers - their beauty, their colour, their drama.  This interests me greatly at the moment, because I am just reading a history of the tulip craze in Holland in the early seventeenth century  - a future post when I know more.

But I recalled a wonderful poem, which is about gardens, but also about England.  It stresses the hard work that goes into a beautiful garden, and also the extra pleasure that comes from being part of the garden through working in it, and the ability of everyone, however weak or unexpert, to make a contribution.  My pond always looks more attractive when I have sweated blood over and in it for a morning!   Here it is, Kipling's The Glory of the Garden:

OUR England is a garden that is full of stately views,
Of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns and avenues,
With statues on the terraces and peacocks strutting by;
But the Glory of the Garden lies in more than meets the eye.

For where the old thick laurels grow, along the thin red wall,
You’ll find the tool- and potting-sheds which are the heart of all,
The cold-frames and the hot-houses, the dungpits and the tanks,
The rollers, carts and drain-pipes, with the barrows and the planks.

And there you’ll see the gardeners, the men and ’Prentice boys
Told off to do as they are bid and do it without noise;
For, except when seeds are planted and we shout to scare the birds,
The Glory of the Garden it abideth not in words.

And some can pot begonias and some can bud a rose,
And some are hardly fit to trust with anything that grows;
But they can roll and trim the lawns and sift the sand and loam,
For the Glory of the Garden occupieth all who come.

Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made
By singing:—“Oh, how beautiful!” and sitting in the shade,
While better men than we go out and start their working lives
At grubbing weeds from gravel-paths with broken dinnerknives.

There’s not a pair of legs so thin, there’s not a head so thick,
There’s not a hand so weak and white, nor yet a heart so sick,
But it can find some needful job that’s crying to be done,
For the Glory of the Garden glorifieth every one.

Then seek your job with thankfulness and work till further orders,
If it’s only netting strawberries or killing slugs on borders;
And when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden,
You will find yourself a partner in the Glory of the Garden.

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!
And the Glory of the Garden it shall never pass away!

And, finally, a challenge for Cornflower and all other readers, to identify this wondrous line (though there are so many great pieces of prose and poetry about gardens, that I think this theme may have legs):

"The temple bell stops but still I hear the sound coming out of the flowers."

Comments

[Karen]

Thankyou!

[Karen]

Can you edit my comment to correct the spelling mistake, please?

[Peter the flautist]

Dark Puss recognised the poetic form (or at least thought he did!) and yes I am quite good at searching for things! I actually KNOW very little, but I remember where and how to find things out.

Congratulations on your puzzle, you are correct too. It was only last year the mystery as to how the anthocyanin molecule manifested itself in such different ways was fully solved. The original work which showed that anthocyanin was involved in both flowers was done in 1913-1915.

I will have to set a more challenging puzzle next time.

[Karen]

It sounds as though my learned friend has answered your question (he's on form today!).

Just as what goes on 'through the green baize door' determines the successful running of the house, so the garden depends on the hot houses, cold frames, etc. as Kipling says. They have a romance about them which transcends the purely utilitarian.
Did you ever see "Mr. Maidment's garden", designed by Stephen Woodhams and exhibited at Chelsea some years ago? Glasshouse which would once have been a powerhouse, but now in a state of dilapidation; so little left of what would have been so much.

[lindsay]

Well done - did you know or did you use Google? And is the answer to your questions anthocyanins?

[Peter the flautist]

Your quotation is a Haiku from Matsuo Basho

[Peter the flautist]

Dark Puss poses you a challenge relating to garden flowers and colours:

Roses are red and cornflowers are blue - but what is the underlying connection between the sources of the distinctively different colours in these two plants?