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. |
From inside the book
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Page 18
... sweet spirit & holesome smell . More sweet and holesome , then the pleasaunt hill Of Rhodope , on which the Nimphe , that bore A gyaunt babe , her selfe for griefe did kill ; Or the Thessalian Tempe , where of yore Faire Daphne Phoebus ...
... sweet spirit & holesome smell . More sweet and holesome , then the pleasaunt hill Of Rhodope , on which the Nimphe , that bore A gyaunt babe , her selfe for griefe did kill ; Or the Thessalian Tempe , where of yore Faire Daphne Phoebus ...
Page 25
... sweet gum did drop , That all the ground with precious deaw bedight , Threw forth most dainty odours , & most sweet delight . And in the thickest couert of that shade , There was a pleasant arbour , not by art , But of the trees owne ...
... sweet gum did drop , That all the ground with precious deaw bedight , Threw forth most dainty odours , & most sweet delight . And in the thickest couert of that shade , There was a pleasant arbour , not by art , But of the trees owne ...
Page 153
... sweet , silent brooks , Being banked with posies That spontaneous grow there , Planted in order By the sweet ' Rock Close ' . ' Tis there the daisy And the sweet carnation , The blooming pink And the rose so fair , The daffydowndilly ...
... sweet , silent brooks , Being banked with posies That spontaneous grow there , Planted in order By the sweet ' Rock Close ' . ' Tis there the daisy And the sweet carnation , The blooming pink And the rose so fair , The daffydowndilly ...
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 |