The garden

A very brief spell of sunshine today.
The garden is looking at its best so as We weren't going out anywhere, I thought this would make a good blip for today.

This reminded me of a poem which my mother used to recite, when she was a girl.

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, and 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 its 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!

Rudyard Kipling.

My grandad was a gardener (Mum's father)
He started out as a boy, doing his apprenticeship at the Penlee Gardens in Penzance.
From there went to Sefton Park, Liverpool, Then Langholm, Scotland, (where my mother was born) Then to Bradford, Yorkshire.

This is why this poem was special to my mum and also to me.

I hope you like it too.