Posts Tagged ‘Listener Favorite’
It Was Not Till I Experimented With Seeds
by Beverley Nichols It was not till I experimented with seeds plucked straight from a growing plant that I had my first success… the first thrill of creation… the first taste of blood. This, surely, must be akin to the pride of paternity… indeed, many soured bachelors would wager that it must be almost as…
Read MoreI Had Never Taken a Cutting Before
by Beverley Nichols I had never ‘taken a cutting’ before… Do you not realize that the whole thing is miraculous? It is exactly as though you were to cut off your wife’s leg, stick it in the lawn, and be greeted on the following day by an entirely new woman, sprung from the leg, advancing…
Read MoreIt’s Designed to Break Your Heart
by A. Bartlett Giamatti It’s designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything is new again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. As featured onThe Daily…
Read MoreShe Had Only to Stand in the Orchard
by Willa Cather She had only to stand in the orchard, to put her hand on a little crab tree and look up at the apples, to make you feel the goodness of planting and tending and harvesting at last. As featured onThe Daily Gardener podcast: Words inspired by the garden are the sweetest, most…
Read MoreQuinnipeague in August
by Barbara Delinksy Quinnipeague in August was a lush green place where inchworms dangled from trees whose leaves were so full that the eaten parts were barely missed. Mornings meant ‘thick o’ fog’ that caught on rooftops and dripped, blurring weathered gray shingles while barely muting the deep pink of rosa rugosa or the hydrangea’s…
Read MoreMy Garden My Self
by Christina Rossetti My garden cannot be anything other than my self. Note: Christina Rossetti also wrote the words to two of my favorite Christmas Carols: In the Bleak Midwinter and Love Came Down at Christmas. As featured onThe Daily Gardener podcast: Words inspired by the garden are the sweetest, most beautiful words of…
Read MoreAugust
by Celia Laighton Thaxter Buttercup nodded, and said good-bye; Clover and Daisy went off together; But the fragrant water-lilies lie Yet moored in the golden August weather. Note: The poet Celia Laighton Thaxter (1835-1894) grew up on an island. Her father built a hotel on Appledore Island, and it became a hub for…
Read MoreA Hand Came Out of August
by Cecil Day-Lewis 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. As featured onThe Daily Gardener podcast: Words inspired by…
Read MoreTheir Lonely Betters
by W.H. Auden As I listened from a beach-chair in the shade To all the noises that my garden made. It seemed to me that only proper Should be withheld from vegetables and birds. A robin with no Christian name ran through The Robin-Anthem which was all it knew, And rustling flowers from some third…
Read MoreThe Summer is No Longer Alive
by Tove Jannson Every year, the bright Scandinavian summer nights fade without anyone’s noticing. One evening in August, you have an errand outdoors, and all of a sudden, it’s pitch-black. It is still summer, but the summer is no longer alive. As featured onThe Daily Gardener podcast: Words inspired by the garden are the sweetest,…
Read MoreFairest of Months! Ripe Summer’s Queen!
by Richard Combe Miller Fairest of months! Ripe Summer’s Queen! The hey-day of the year, With robes that gleam with sunny sheen Sweet August doth appear. With rosy fruit her skirts are drest, Flowers her glory swell, And birthday wishes are most blest, Breathed ‘neath her potent spell. As featured onThe Daily Gardener podcast: Words…
Read MoreSummer is Delicious
by John Ruskin Summer is delicious; rain is refreshing, wind braces up, snow is exhilarating; there is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather. As featured onThe Daily Gardener podcast: Words inspired by the garden are the sweetest, most beautiful words of all. John Ruskin
Read MoreFlowers Reflect the Human Search for Meaning
by Phillipp Moffitt Flowers reflect the human search for meaning. Does not each of us, no matter how our life has gone, ache to have a life as beautiful and true to itself as that of a flower? As featured onThe Daily Gardener podcast: Words inspired by the garden are the sweetest, most beautiful words…
Read MoreHow Often Are the Beauties
by Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps How often are the beauties of nature unheeded by man, who, musing on past ills, brooding over the possible calamities of the future, building castles in the air, or wrapped up in his own self-love and self-importance, forgets to look abroad, or looks with a vacant stare. Note:…
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