Clover, Seashells, and August: Cecil Day-Lewis in the Garden of Time
This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast:
April 27, 1904
On this day, Cecil Day-Lewis—Irish-born British poet and later Poet Laureate—was born.
Under the pen name Nicholas Blake he solved murders; under his own, he measured the hush between clover and sky. See books by this author.
From Overtures to Death and Other Poems (1938):
In June we picked the clover,
And sea-shells in July:
There was no silence at the door,
No word from the sky.A hand came out of August
And flicked his life away:
We had not time to bargain, mope,
Moralize, or pray.
His lines move like weather over a field—bright, then shadowed—reminding us that seasons are both calendar and catechism.
Cecil Day-Lewis (colorized portrait)
