A garden

We have a little garden,
        A garden of our own,
And every day we water there
        The seeds that we have sown.

We love our little garden,
        And tend it with such care,
You will not find a faded leaf
        Or blighted blossom there.

Helen Beatrix Potter

Helen Beatrix Potter was an English writer, illustrator, natural scientist, and conservationist best known for her children's books featuring animals, such as those in 'The Tale of Peter Rabbit.' Born in 1866, she grew up in a wealthy Unitarian family. Potter's works have had a profound impact on children’s literature. Besides writing, she was also an avid conservationist and used proceeds from her books to preserve the Lake District's natural beauty. She passed away in 1943.

Helen Beatrix Potter

Cecily Parsley

Helen Beatrix Potter, Simple Poetry

Goosey, goosey, gander,

Helen Beatrix Potter, Simple Poetry

Ninny nanny netticoat

Helen Beatrix Potter, Simple Poetry

English

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Our Garden.

The winter is gone; and at first Jack and I were sad,
Because of the snow-man's melting, but now we are glad;
For the spring has come, and it's warm, and we're allowed to garden in the afternoon;
And summer is coming, and oh, how lovely our flowers will be in June!
We are so fond of flowers, it makes us quite happy to think
Of our beds--all colours--blue, white, yellow, purple, and pink,
Scarlet, lilac, and crimson! And we're fond of sweet scents as well,
And mean to have pinks, roses, sweet peas, mignonette, clove carnations, musk, and everything good to smell;
Lavender, rosemary, and we should like a lemon-scented verbena, and a big myrtle tree!
And then if we could get an old "preserved-ginger" pot, and some bay-salt, we could make _pot-pourri_.
Jack and I have a garden, though it's not...

Juliana Horatia Ewing

The Garden

    We owned a garden on a hill,
    We planted rose and daffodil,
    Flowers that English poets sing,
    And hoped for glory in the Spring.

    We planted yellow hollyhocks,
    And humble sweetly-smelling stocks,
    And columbine for carnival,
    And dreamt of Summer's festival.

    And Autumn not to be outdone
    As heiress of the summer sun,
    Should doubly wreathe her tawny head
    With poppies and with creepers red.

    We waited then for all to grow,
    We planted wallflowers in a row.
    And lavendar and borage blue,,
    Alas! we waited, I and you,
    But love was all that ever grew.

        Long Barn
        Summer, 1915

Victoria Mary Sackville-West

My Garden

Only the commonest flowers
    Grow in my garden small,
Like buttercups, and bouncing-bets,
    And hollyhocks by the wall,
And sunflowers nodding their stately heads,
    Like grenadiers so tall.
But the purple pansy grows beneath--
    The sweetest flower of all--

And tiny feathery filmy ferns
    You scarce can see at all,
Fleck the shady side of the stones,
    So dainty, fine and small

Only the commonest flowers
    Grow in this garden of mine,
The larkspur flaunting her sky-blue cap,
    And the twinkling celandine
Shakes her jewels of freckled gold,
    And drinks her honey-wine,
Making a cup of her lucent stem,
    So slender and so fine.

You hear the waves that dimple and slide,
    Slide and shimmer and shin...

Kate Seymour Maclean

The Garden

Bountiful Givers,
I look along the years
And see the flowers you threw...
Anemones
And sprigs of gray
Sparse heather of the rocks,
Or a wild violet
Or daisy of a daisied field...
But each your best.

I might have worn them on my breast
To wilt in the long day...
I might have stemmed them in a narrow vase
And watched each petal sallowing...
I might have held them so - mechanically -
Till the wind winnowed all the leaves
And left upon my hands
A little smear of dust.

Instead
I hid them in the soft warm loam
Of a dim shadowed place...
Deep
In a still cool grotto,
Lit only by the memories of stars
And the wide and luminous eyes
Of dead poets
That love me and that I love...
Deep... deep...
Where none...

Lola Ridge

The Garden

My heart is a garden tired with autumn,
Heaped with bending asters and dahlias heavy and dark,
In the hazy sunshine, the garden remembers April,
The drench of rains and a snow-drop quick and clear as a spark;

Daffodils blowing in the cold wind of morning,
And golden tulips, goblets holding the rain,
The garden will be hushed with snow, forgotten soon, forgotten,
After the stillness, will spring come again?

Sara Teasdale

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 will find the tool- and potting-sheds which are the heart of all;
The cold-frames and the hot-houses, the dungpits 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...

Rudyard