The Oxford Book of Garden VerseJohn Dixon Hunt Oxford University Press, 1993 - 341 pages Gardens have been all things to all people: paradoxical sites of pleasure and pain, safety and danger, art and nature; public spaces and private retreats, places of physical labor and metaphysical reflection. This diversity and versatility have always attracted poets, whose repertory of garden themes on paper matches what gardeners themselves have achieved on the ground. Now, in The Oxford Book of Garden Verse, the best of this tradition has been gathered. From enclosed gardens and landscape parks to Victorian flower gardens and modern patios, successive historical periods of gardening are mirrored in verse from the Middle Ages to the present day. gardening--from enclosed garden and landscape park to Victorian flower-garden and modern patio--are mirrored in verse from the Middle Ages to the present day. Here is a variety of poetic expression: the metaphorical associations gardens inspire, and the detailed descriptions, both romantic and robust. Microcosms of society--either perfectly maintained or ill-kempt and overrun, where love can blossom alongside the flowers, or withering and decay may presage death--gardens are also sites of real human labor. And in The Oxford Book of Garden Verse, the gardener is celebrated as much as the creation, as are the mundane tasks of weeding, making compost, mowing lawns, and tending the grounds. In his introduction, John Dixon Hunt discusses certain themes that recur throughout a selection that ranges from Chaucer to Pope, Marvell to Tennyson, Coleridge to Fleur Adcock, W.B. Yeats to Anthony Hecht, and Rudyard Kipling to Anne Sexton. Particularly fertile in modern examples, this delightful anthology is a riot of literary talent to match the most abundant of gardens. |
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Page 53
... rich embroidery , And Babylonian tapestry , And wealthy Hiram's princely dye ; Though Ophir's starry stones met everywhere her eye , Though she herself , and her gay host were dressed With all the shining glories of the east ; When ...
... rich embroidery , And Babylonian tapestry , And wealthy Hiram's princely dye ; Though Ophir's starry stones met everywhere her eye , Though she herself , and her gay host were dressed With all the shining glories of the east ; When ...
Page 144
... rich alcove : A naked Venus here , a Bacchus there , And mimic ruins , kept in good repair ; The real rustic's sweet and simple bounds , Quick - set and garden , changed to pleasure - grounds , And the fresh sod , that formed the ...
... rich alcove : A naked Venus here , a Bacchus there , And mimic ruins , kept in good repair ; The real rustic's sweet and simple bounds , Quick - set and garden , changed to pleasure - grounds , And the fresh sod , that formed the ...
Page 213
... rich man's house ? Not though his windows , thick as stars , Number the days in every year ; I , with one window for each month , Am rich in four or five to spare . But when I count his shrubberies , His fountains there , and clumps of ...
... rich man's house ? Not though his windows , thick as stars , Number the days in every year ; I , with one window for each month , Am rich in four or five to spare . But when I count his shrubberies , His fountains there , and clumps of ...
Contents
KING JAMES BIBLE 1611 | 1 |
THOMAS TUSSER ?15241580 | 14 |
EDMUND SPENSER 15521599 | 17 |
Copyright | |
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Alcinous Anthony Hecht beauteous beauty beneath blooms blossom boughs bower breath bright charms Chris Wallace-Crabbe Collected Poems colours cool D. J. Enright dark delight dream earth eyes fair fall flowers fountain fragrant fruit garden Garden Poem glory golden prime grace grass green groves grow hand hanging happy Haroun Alraschid head heart herbs hills Howard Nemerov James Schuyler lake landscape lawn leaves light lilies look lovers muse Nature never night o'er once paradise park Patrick Kavanagh plain plant pleasure poets pride rain Reprinted by permission rich Richard Wilbur rise rose round Ruth Pitter scene shade shadows shine sight slope smell soft song spread spring stone stream summer sweet taste Temple terrace thee Theodore Roethke Thom Gunn thou toil trees turn Vita Sackville-West W. H. Auden walk walls waves weeds wild William Empson wind wonder wood
References to this book
A Contemplation Upon Flowers: Garden Plants in Myth and Literature Bobby J. Ward No preview available - 1999 |