Adam's Garden

When he penned:

"My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe,
My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go."

Burns neatly encapsulated the feelings of memories of home, wherever that may be, and for whomever it may apply. And reading it made me think to what actually bonds us to our homeland, or 'Heimat' to use a German expression. It could be the landscape, or the wildlife, or perhaps the indigenous culture, or maybe the weather, particularly so in maritime climates; it could include the flora. In truth it is probably a combination of all these things, and many more besides, but the angle I would like to take on this is unashamedly that of the gardener. In Burns' example above I like to think he was influenced by the glorious sight of heather carpeting the landscape.

I don't know if he was a keen gardener or not, but like many great writers Burns alludes to gardens and plants, and I often try and guess whether an author has a genuine love of gardening or is just a keen observer of nature. In the first century BC Horace wrote:

"This was one of my prayers: for a parcel of land not so very large, which should have a garden and a spring of ever-flowing water near the house , and a bit of woodland as well as these."

That sounds to me an ideal start for any gardener, in fact I would say that could be the brief for any self-respecting estate agent even today. Horace of course would have more than likely had plenty of slaves to train the vines and harvest olives, and may well have spent many hours in his parcel of land relaxing and writing. He would have done well to heed the rather enigmatic words of Roy Campbell:

"Write with your spade, and garden with your pen, shovel your couplets to their long repose. And type your turnips down the field in rows."

Those words might also be directed towards garden writers, perhaps substituting something a little more inviting than turnips. Although not known as a garden writer Rudyard Kipling was obviously a garden lover with gems such as:

"The glory of the Garden, it abideth not in words." and "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 peacock's strutting by; But the Glory of the Garden lies in more than meets the eye."

Kipling raises our hopes that he could be a hands-on gardener with:

"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!"

Only to dash them with the more revealing:

"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."

Maybe he was just being modest, or just looking for a neat rhyme, unlike Dylan Thomas who probably adapted a one-liner with:

"Nothing grows in our garden, only washing. And babies"

In the seventeenth century Andrew Marvell was obviously years ahead of his time in owning a wild garden. He gives us:

"I have a garden of my own,
But so with roses overgrown,
And lilies that you would it guess,
To be a little wilderness"

Many writers use the passing of the seasons and the varying states of plants as metaphors. An example of this comes from Lord Herbert of Cherbury who wrote:

"Now that the April of your youth adorns
The garden of your face."

Another favoured theme is the feeling of peace and tranquility, or even serenity, that can be engendered in the individual by a garden, as exemplified by a quote from Dorothy Frances Gurney:

"The kiss of the sun for pardon,
The song of the birds for mirth,
One is nearer God's Heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on earth"

Some writers can take things a little too far. Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote:

"The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness"

I seem to have strayed a little from my theme of delving into which writers have dirt under their fingernails, and which ones prefer the patio, but in reality as long as what they produce is interesting I'm not complaining. Let me leave you as I began; with some immortal words from Burns:

"Ev'n Thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate,
That fate is thine - no distant date;
Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives elate
Full on thy bloom,
Till crush'd beneath the furrow's weight
Shall be thy doom!"

You can find more articles in the archive under Soiled Hands.

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