Sunday, July 31, 2016

Here are Sweet Peas....

 "Here are sweet peas, on tip toe for a flight: With wings of gentle flush o'er delicate white, and taper fingers catching at all things, to bind them all about with tiny rings." (John Keats 1795-1821)

 It is said that Keats gave the sweet pea its name and called it "sweet" and "pea" in the same breath.
 Sweet peas were so popular in Edwardian England. Every dining room table, every wedding bouquet ( or thereabouts) sported sweet peas.
 And now,  the sweet peas from this summer are just on their way out, making pea pods every day with seeds for next year.

 And cats that hunt, like Smokey, are finding long garter snakes in the base of the tendrils. Clever Smokey.

 As queen of the  annuals , the sweet pea flourishes best in the ground, and has a shorter life in troughs, but still they are  amazing....I found an actual sweet pea poem,  "Under the Sweet Peas" , amid my ramblings. It's written by Alfred Noyes ( 1880-1958)
 Under the sweet peas I stood and drew deep breaths, they smelt sooooo good.
 Then, with strange enchanted eyes , I saw them change to butterflies.
 Higher than the skylark sings I saw their fluttering crimson wings
 Leave their garden-trellis bare

 And fly into the upper air.

(Bunny Peas)
 Standing in an elfin trance through the clouds I saw them glance....
 Then I stretched my hands up high
 And touched them in the distant sky.

 At once the coloured wing came back from wandering in the zodiac.
 Under the sweet peas I stood
 And drew deep breaths......

 They smelt soooooooo good.
 "Under the Sweet peas I stood" by Alfred Noyes......

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

In the Heat of the Day.....

 "SUMMER SUN" by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) from A Child's Garden of Verses ( 1947)  (Since it is so hot these days....sizzle, sizzle....thought it would be appropriate to do some reading on the porch..........
 Great is the sun, and wide he goes
 Through empty heaven without repose,

 And in the blue and glowing days more thick than rain he showers his rays...
 Though closer still the blinds we pull
 To keep the shady parlour cool,

 Yet he will find a chink or two
 To slip his golden fingers through.

 The dusty attic spider-clad He,
 Through the keyhole, maketh glad;

 And through the broken edge of tiles,
 Into the laddered hayloft smiles.
Meantime his golden face around

 He bares to all the garden ground,
 And sheds a warm and glittering look

 Among the ivy's inmost nook.
 Above the hills,



 Along the blue,
 Round the bright air with footing true,
 To please the child,
 To paint the rose,
 The gardener of the World.....
 He goes...................