FEATURE STORIES

FEATURED STORIES

THE GARDEN

The English philosopher and statesman Sir Thomas More said that ”the many great gardens of the world, of literature and poetry, of painting and music, of religion and architecture, all make the point as clear as possible: The soul cannot thrive in the absence of a garden. If you don't want paradise, you are not human; and if you are not human,youdon'thaveasoul. ”

I have just spent a productive weekend, working in my own garden. Spring is tantalisingly beginning to reveal itself in the new buds and early flowers everywhere. After so much time spent in lockdown over the last 12 months, one begins to appreciate the private, psychological and personal space that your gardenoccupies. The garden is such a force that revitalises and restores the spirit. Our gardens reflect the seasons, our moodsandourloves&desires.Theyareanopenbooktoourinnerbeings. The French philosopher, Voltaire said of gardens “We must cultivate our own garden. When man was putinthegardenofEdenhewasputtheresothatheshouldwork,whichprovesthatmanwasnotborn torest” .Gardensarenotjustaboutsittinginthesunortheshade,theyneedconstantmaintenanceand attention. Above all, working in our gardens can be the best therapeutic exercises that we can undertakeatanytime.

I have collected an array of poems dedicated to the garden and to gardening. They explore the peace, beauty, toil and trials associated with the garden through time. This post is dedicated to all you gardenersandwould-begardenersoutthere.

Enjoy!

GUEST FEATURE BY JOHN WYNN-JONES: THE GARDEN

Dr John Wynn-Jones is well known in WONCA circles and immediatepastchairoftheWONCAWorkingPartyonRural Practice. During the COVID-19 crisis, he has been writing a 'Rural Miscellany' email with poems and resource ideas to help and divert us in this difficult time. In this, the second item of 2021, we publish "The Garden" - written by John thismonth.

Dr John Wynn-Jones

AndrewMarvell(1621-1678)

Andrew Marvell was an English Metaphysical poet, satirist and politician whose political reputation overshadowed that of his poetry until the 20th century. He is now considered to be one of the best Metaphysical poets. He sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1659 and 1678. During the Commonwealth period he was a colleagueandfriendofJohnMilton.

He spent his boyhood in the Yorkshire town of Hull, where his father, a clergyman of Calvinist inclination, was appointed lecturer at Holy Trinity Church and master of the Charterhouse when the poet was three years old. At the age of 13, Marvell attended Trinity College, Cambridge and eventually received a BA degree. From the middle of 1642 onwards, Marvell probably travelled in continental Europe.

He may well have served as a tutor for an aristocrat on the Grand Tour, but the facts are not clear on this point. While England was embroiled in the civil war, Marvell seems to have remained on the continent. His poems range from the love-songs, to evocations of aristocratic country houses & gardens and political satire. Although earlier opposed to Oliver Cromwell’s Commonwealth government, he wrote “An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland” (1650), and from 1653 to 1657 he was a tutor to Cromwell’s ward William Dutton. In 1657 he became assistant to John Milton as Latin secretaryintheforeignoffice.

After the restoration of Charles II in 1660, Marvell turned to political verse satires. Marvell is also said to have interceded on behalf of Milton to have him freed from prison in 1660. His political writings favoured the toleration of religious dissent and attackedtheabuseofmonarchicalpower.

"The Garden" is one of the most famous English poemsoftheseventeenthcentury.Ittakestheform ofmeditationinagarden. Some have interpreted it t as a response to the original biblical garden, Eden, while other commentators have understood the poem as a meditation about sex, political ambition, and various other themes. Its celebrated lines about ‘Annihilating all that’s made / To a green thought inagreenshade’areespeciallymemorable.

Marvell depicts the garden as a retreat, as a place of repose and restfulness – an escape from the more frenetic world of public life that lies beyond the boundaries of the garden. We’ve probably all dreamed of chucking it all in and retreating to some quiet and tranquil place where our soul or mind will know some rest. When our passions have run their course, love can blossom in the spaceofthegarden.

The Garden

How vainly men themselves amaze To win the palm, the oak, or bays, And their uncessant labours see Crown’d from some single herb or tree, Whose short and narrow verged shade Does prudently their toils upbraid; While all flow’rs and all trees do close To weave the garlands of repose.

Fair Quiet, have I found thee here, And Innocence, thy sister dear! Mistaken long, I sought you then In busy companies of men; Your sacred plants, if here below, Only among the plants will grow. Society is all but rude, To this delicious solitude.

No white nor red was ever seen So am’rous as this lovely green. Fond lovers, cruel as their flame, Cut in these trees their mistress’ name; Little, alas, they know or heed How far these beauties hers exceed! Fair trees! wheres’e’er your barks I wound, No name shall but your own be found.

When we have run our passion’s heat, Love hither makes his best retreat. The gods, that mortal beauty chase, Still in a tree did end their race: Apollo hunted Daphne so, Only that she might laurel grow; And Pan did after Syrinx speed, Not as a nymph, but for a reed.

What wond’rous life in this I lead! Ripe apples drop about my head; The luscious clusters of the vine Upon my mouth do crush their wine; The nectarine and curious peach Into my hands themselves do reach; Stumbling on melons as I pass, Ensnar’d with flow’rs, I fall on grass.

Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less, Withdraws into its happiness; The mind, that ocean where each kind Does straight its own resemblance find, Yet it creates, transcending these, Far other worlds, and other seas; Annihilating all that’s made To a green thought in a green shade.

Here at the fountain’s sliding foot, Or at some fruit tree’s mossy root, Casting the body’s vest aside, My soul into the boughs does glide; There like a bird it sits and sings, Then whets, and combs its silver wings; And, till prepar’d for longer flight, Waves in its plumes the various light.

Such was that happy garden-state, While man there walk’d without a mate; After a place so pure and sweet, What other help could yet be meet! But ’twas beyond a mortal’s share To wander solitary there: Two paradises ’twere in one To live in paradise alone. How well the skillful gard’ner drew Of flow’rs and herbs this dial new, Where from above the milder sun Does through a fragrant zodiac run; And as it works, th’ industrious bee Computes its time as well as we. How could such sweet and wholesome hours Be reckon’d but with herbs and flow’rs!

WilliamBlake(1757-1827)

William Blake was an English poet, painter, visionary and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age. We have come across his poetry on many occasions and hence I refrainforfurtherintroduction.

Blakes tell us that he goes into the “Garden of Love” where he used to play as a child. He finds a chapel built on the spot where he once played. The gates of the chapel are shut, and commandmentsandprohibitionsarewrittenover the door. The garden has become a graveyard, its flowers replaced by tombstones. The garden is an allegorical image of liberty, in the shape of a garden being crushed and turned into a world of deathandrestriction.Italsoalludestothegarden of Eden and what was lost when Adam and Eve gave in to temptation. Blake disliked organised religion and the chapel represents the organised religionthathehatedthemost.

The Garden of Love

I went to the Garden of Love, And saw what I never had seen: A Chapel was built in the midst, Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this Chapel were shut, AndThoushaltnotwritoverthedoor; SoIturn’dtotheGardenofLove, Thatsomanysweetflowersbore.

And I saw it was filled with graves, And tomb-stones where flowers should be: And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds, And binding with briars, my joys & desires.

SaraColeridge(1802-1852)

Sara Coleridge was an English author and translator. She was the third child out of four and only daughter of the romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his wife Sara Fricker. She gained popularitywithinstructiveversesforchildren.

During her childhood, her father was seldom at home, and his brother-in-law Robert Southey influenced Sara’s early years. She did not see her father from 1812 to 1822, when she visited him at Highgate with her mother. Thereafter his influence was strikingly evident. In 1829 she married her cousin, Henry Nelson Coleridge. For her children, she wrote Pretty Lessons in Verse for Good Children (1834) and Phantasmion(1837), a fairy story with some delightful lyrics. When her husband died in 1843, she took up his unfinished task of editing her father’s works and also made several contributions toColeridgeanstudies.

“The Garden Year” tells us that our gardens reflect every season and every month of the year. There is alwayssomethingtodo.

The Garden Year

January brings the snow, Makesourfeetandfingersglow.

Februarybringstherain, Thawsthefrozenlakeagain.

Marchbringsbreezes,loudandshrill, Tostirthedancingdaffodil.

Aprilbringstheprimrosesweet, Scattersdaisiesatourfeet.

Maybringsflocksofprettylambs Skippingbytheirfleecydams. June brings tulips, lilies, roses, Fills the children’s hands with posies.

Hot July brings cooling showers, Apricots, and gillyflowers.

August brings the sheaves of corn, Then the harvest home is borne.

Warm September brings the fruit; Sportsmen then begin to shoot.

Fresh October brings the pheasant; Then to gather nuts is pleasant.

Dull November brings the blast; Then the leaves are whirling fast.

Chill December brings the sleet, Blazing fire, and Christmas treat.

ElizabethBarrettBrowning(1806-1861)

ElizabethBarrettBrowningwasanEnglishpoetof the Victorian era, popular in Britain and the United States during her lifetime. Born in County Durham, the eldest of 12 children, Elizabeth Barrettwrotepoetryfromtheageofeleven.

The Barrett family were part Creole and had lived in Jamaica, where they owned sugar plantations and relied on slave labour. Elizabeth's father, EdwardBarrettMoultonBarrett,chosetoraisehis family in England, while his fortune grew in Jamaica. Educated at home, Elizabeth apparently had read passages from Paradise Lost and a numberofShakespeareanplays,beforetheageof ten. By her twelfth year, she had written her first "epic" poem, which consisted of four books of rhyming couplets. Two years later, Elizabeth developed a lung ailment that plagued her for the rest of her life. Doctors began treating her with morphine, which she would take until her death. While saddling a pony when she was fifteen, Elizabeth also suffered a spinal injury. Despite her ailments,hereducationcontinuedtoflourish.

Throughout her teenage years, Elizabeth taught herself Hebrew so that she could read the Old Testament; her interests later turned to Greek studies. The abolition of slavery in England and mismanagement of the plantations depleted the Barretts's income, and in 1832, Elizabeth's father sold his rural home, finally settling permanently in London.

Gaining attention for her work in the 1830s, Elizabeth continued to live in her father's London house under his tyrannical rule. He began sending Elizabeth'syoungersiblingstoJamaicatohelpwith the family's estates. Elizabeth bitterly opposed slavery and did not want her siblings sent away. While staying by the coast to improve her health, her brother Edward drowned, and this had a profound impact on her becoming an invalid and a recluse. She spent the next five years in her bedroom at her father's home. She continued writing and her 1844 collection, entitled Poems gained the attention of poet Robert Browning, whose work Elizabeth had praised in one of her poems,andhewroteheraletter.

Elizabeth and Robert, who was six years her junior, exchanged574lettersoverthenexttwentymonths. Immortalized in 1930 in the play The Barretts of Wimpole Street, by Rudolf Besier, their romance was bitterly opposed by her father, who did not want any of his children to marry. In 1846, the couple eloped and settled in Florence, Italy, where Elizabeth's health improved, and she bore a son. Herfatherneverspoketoheragain.

This poem, one of Barrett Browning’s “Sonnets from the Portuguese” (1850), was written about her love for her husband, Robert, describing how her beloved brought her flowers plucked in the garden, astokensofhisaffection.

The poem is about her courtship and eventual marriagetoRobertBrowningwhomsheinstructsto accept her gifts (her thoughts) which, like the flowers in the garden, have grown within her and underhiscare‘shallnotpine’ .

Sonnets from the Portuguese 44: Beloved, thou has brought me many flowers

Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers Plucked in the garden, all the summer through And winter, and it seemed as if they grew In this close room, nor missed the sun and showers,

So, in the like name of that love of ours, Take back these thoughts which here unfolded too,

And which on warm and cold days I withdrew From my heart’s ground. Indeed, those beds and bowers,

Be overgrown with bitter weeds and rue, And wait thy weeding; yet here’s eglantine, Here’s ivy!— take them, as I used to do Thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine.

Instruct thine eyes to keep their colours true, And tell thy soul, their roots are left in mine.

Alfred,LordTennyson(1809-1892)

Alfred, Lord Tennyson was an English poet often regarded as the chief representative of the Victorian age in poetry. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular British poets. Although decried by some critics as overly sentimental, his verse soon proved popular and brought Tennyson to the attention of well-known writers of the day, including Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Tennyson's early poetry, with its medievalism and powerful visual imagery, was a major influence on the painters of the PreRaphaeliteBrotherhood.

“Come into the garden, Maud” is probably the most famous garden poem in the English language. The poem describes a lover's wait for his lady love at the end of a ball. ... He speaks to the lilies and roses, describes the beauty and enigma of the lady love. Throughout the poem, the learnt imagery and the sensuality makes the poemevenmoreappealing.

Come into the Garden Maud became a popular Victorian parlour song. The publisher John Boosey selected tactfully from Tennyson's lengthy poem (1855) and sent the verses to the composer Balfe, who composed this song for the celebrated tenor SimsReeves.

Come into the garden, Maud

Come into the garden, Maud, For the black bat, night, has flown, Come into the garden, Maud, I am here at the gate alone ; And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad, And the musk of the rose is blown.

For a breeze of morning moves, And the planet of Love is on high, Beginning to faint in the light that she loves On a bed of daffodil sky, To faint in the light of the sun she loves, To faint in his light, and to die.

All night have the roses heard The flute, violin, bassoon ; All night has the casement jessamine stirred To the dancers dancing in tune ; Till a silence fell with the waking bird, And a hush with the setting moon.

I said to the lily,

‘There is but one With whom she has heart to be gay. When will the dancers leave her alone ? She is weary of dance and play. ’ Now half to the setting moon are gone, And half to the rising day ; Low on the sand and loud on the stone The last wheel echoes away.

I said to the rose,

‘The brief night goes In babble and revel and wine. O young lord-lover, what sighs are those, For one that will never be thine ? But mine, but mine, ’ so I sware to the rose, For ever and ever, mine. ’ And the soul of the rose went into my blood, As the music clashed in the hall; And long by the garden lake I stood, For I heard your rivulet fall From the lake to the meadow and on to the wood, Our wood, that is dearer than all;

From the meadow your walks have left so sweet That whenever a March-wind sighs He sets the jewel-print of your feet In violets blue as your eyes, To the woody hollows in which we meet And the valleys of Paradise.

The slender acacia would not shake One long milk-bloom on the tree ; The white lake-blossom fell into the lake As the pimpernel dozed on the lea ; But the rose was awake all night for your sake, Knowing your promise to me; The lilies and roses were all awake, They sighed for the dawn and thee.

Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls, Come hither, the dances are done, In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls, Queen lily and rose in one; Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls, To the flowers, and be their sun.

There has fallen a splendid tear From the passion-flower at the gate. She is coming, my dove, my dear; She is coming, my life, my fate; The red rose cries She is near, she is near;’ And the white rose weeps, ‘She is late;’ The larkspur listens, ‘I hear, I hear;’ And the lily whispers, ‘I wait. ’

She is coming, my own, my sweet, Were it ever so airy a tread, My heart would hear her and beat, Were it earth in an earthy bed ; My dust would hear her and beat, Had I lain for a century dead ; Would start and tremble under her feet, And blossom in purple and red.