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Twelve beautifully illustrated, essays on gardening arranged by month. Vita Sackville-West wrote gardening articles for the Observer from 1946 to 1961 from which these essays are taken. The author is well-known as the creator of the gardens at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent, the most visited garden in England. This is a very enjoyable read even for non-gardeners. ( )
Informació del coneixement compartit en anglès.Modifica-la per localitzar-la a la teva llengua.
January: How precious are the flowers of mid-winter! Not the hothouse things, nor even the forced trusses of lilac, most of which, I understand, come from Holland, but the genuine toughs that for some strange reason elect to display themselves out-of-doors at this time of year.
Citacions
Informació del coneixement compartit en anglès.Modifica-la per localitzar-la a la teva llengua.
Hear next of winter, when the florid summer, The bright barbarian scarfed in a swathe of flowers, The corn a golden earring on her cheek, Has left our north to winter's finer etching, To raw-boned winter, when the sun Slinks in a narrow and a furtive arc, Red as the harvest moon, from east to west, And the swans go home at dusk to the leaden lake Dark in the plains of snow.
Water alone remains untouched by snow.
- The Land
In February, if the days be clear The waking bee, still drowsy on the wing, Will guess the opening of another year And blunder out to seek another spring. Crashing through winter sunlight's pallid gold, His clumsiness sets catkins on the willow Ashake like lambs' tails in the early fold, Dusting with pollen all his brown and yellow, But when the rimy afternoon turns cold And undern squalls buffet the chilly fellow, He'll seek the hive's warm waxen welcoming And set about the chambers' classic mould.
- The Land
Sometimes in apple country you may see A ghostly orchard standing all in white, Aisles of white trees, white branches, in the green, On some still day when the year hangs between Winter and spring, and heaven is full of light. And rising from the ground pale clouds of smoke Float through the trees and hang upon the air, Trailing their wisps of blue like a swelled cloak From the round cheeks of breezes.
- The Land
But for this summer's quick delight Sow marigold, and sow the bright Frail poppy that with noonday dies But wakens to a fresh surprise; Along the pathway stones be set Sweet alysson and mignonette, That when the full midsummer's come On scented clumps the bees may hum, Golden Italians, and the wild Black humble-bee alike beguiled: And lovers who have never kissed May sow the cloudy love-in-mist.
- The Land
When skies are gentle, breezes bland, When loam that's warm within the hand Falls friable between the tines, Sow hollyhocks and columbines, The tufted pansy, and the tall Snapdragon in the broken wall, Not for this summer, but for next, Since foresight is the gardener's text, And though his eyes may never know How lavishly his flowers blow, Others will stand and musing say "These were the flowers he sowed that May".
June of the iris and the rose. The rose not English as we fondly think. Anacreon and Bion sang the rose; And Rhodes the isle whose very name means rose Struck roses on her coins... The Young Crusaders found the Syrian rose Springing from Saracenic quoins, And China opened her shut gate To let her roses through, and Persian shrines Of poetry and painting gave the rose.
- The Garden
This little space which scented box encloses Is blue with lupins and is sharp with thyme. My garden all is overblown with roses, My spirit all is overblown with rhyme, As like a drunked honeybee I waver From house to garden and again to house, And, undetermined which delight to favour, On verse and rose alternately carouse.
-Sonnet
And August duly brought Swarms of a summer enemy, of those Small samurai in lacquered velvet dressed, Innumerable in their vermin breed As fierce and fiery as a spark of gleed, Scavengers on a gormandising quest To batten on the treasure of our crops Of promised fruit, our gages, Golden Drops, Our peaches downy as a youthful cheek, Our nectarines, in adolescence sleek; They came, destructive though we sought their nest, Those fiends that rustic oracles call wopse.
- The Garden
Pack the dark fibre in the potter's bowl; Set bulbs of hyacinth and daffodil, Jonquil and crocus, (bulbs both sound and whole), Narcissus and the blue Siberian squill. Set close, but not so tight That flow'ring heads collide as months fulfil Their purpose, and in generous sheaf expand Obedient to th'arrangement of your hand. Yours is the forethought, yours the sage control.
- The Garden
There reigns a rusty richness everywhere; See the last orange roses, how they blow Deeper and heavier than in their prime, In one defiant flame before they go; See the red-yellow vine leaves, how they climb In desperate tangle to the upper air; So might a hoyden gipsy toss and throw A scarf across her disobedient hair. See the last zinnias, waiting for the frost, The deadly touch, the crystals and the rime, Intense of colour, violent, extreme, Loud as a trumpet lest a note be lost In blackened death that nothing can redeem.
- The Garden
Forget not the bees in winter, though they sleep, For winter's big with summer in her womb, And when you plant your rose-trees, plant them deep, Having regard to bushes all aflame, And see the dusky promise of their bloom In small red shoots, and let each redolent name - Tuscany, Crested Cabbage, Cottage Maid - Load with full June November's dank repose.
- The Land
Then may you shoulder spade and hoe, And heavy-footed homeward go, For no new flowers shall be born Save hellebore on Christmas morn, And bare gold jasmine on the wall, And violets, and soon the small Blue netted iris, like a cry Startling the sloth of February.
- The Land
Darreres paraules
Informació del coneixement compartit en anglès.Modifica-la per localitzar-la a la teva llengua.
Still, no gardener would be a gardener if he did not live in hope.