To get the season off to an even more auspicious start, here is a lovely poem that captures the essence of gardening:
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 dung-pits 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
dinner-knives.
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!
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