sisters and I used to rush out after lessons and ask him
what the weather was going to be, he would stop his
digging, look up at the sky, and say : ' Well, miss, it may
be fine and it may be wet ; and if the sun comes out, it
will be warmer.' After this solemn announcement he
would wipe his brow and resume his work, and we went
off, quite satisfied, to our well-known haunts in the
Hertfordshire woods, to gather Violets and Primroses for
our mother, who loved them. All this, you will see, laid
a very small foundation for any knowledge of garden-
ing; and yet, owing to the vivid character of the impressions
of youth, it left a memory that was very useful to me when
I took up gardening later in life. To this day I can smell
the tall white double Rockets that throve so well in the
damp garden, and scented the evening air. They grew
by the side of glorious bunches of Oriental Poppies and
the on-coming spikes of the feathery Spircea aruncus.
This garden had peculiar charms for us, because, though
we hardly realised it, such gardens were already
beginning to grow out of fashion, sacrificed to the new
bedding-out system, which altered the whole gardening
of Europe. I shall allude to this again. I can never
think of this old home without my thoughts recurring
to Hood's poem ' I remember ! I remember ! ' too well
known perhaps, even by the young, to justify my quoting
it here. Equally graven on my memory is a much less
familiar little poem my widowed mother used to say
to me as we walked together up and down the gravel
paths, with the primrose sky behind the tall Beeches of
the neighbouring park. For years I never knew where it
came from, nor where she learnt it in her own sentimental
youth. Not long ago I found it in a book of selections.
It was written by John Hamilton Reynolds, that warm
friend of poor Keats, who, as Mr. Sidney Colvin tells us
in his charming Life of the poet, never rose to any great
6 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN
eminence in either literature or law, and died in 1852, as
clerk of the county, at Newport, Isle of Wight. As Mr.
Colvin remarks, it is only in his association with Keats
that his name will live. Yet my mother loved the poem,
which is full of the sentiment of our little home : —
Go where the water glideth gently ever,
Glideth through meadows that the greenest be ;
Go, listen to our own beloved river,
And think of me.
Wander in forests where the small flower layeth
Its fairy gem beneath the giant tree ;
Listen to the dim brook pining while it playeth,
And think of me.
Watch when the sky is silver pale at even,
And the wind grieveth in the lonely tree ;
Go out beneath the solitary heaven,
And think of me.
And when the moon riseth as she were dreaming,
And treadeth with white feet the lulled sea,
Go, silent as a star beneath her beaming,
And think of me.
But enough of these old woman's recollections, and back
to the present, for the sentiment of one generation is very
apt to appear as worthless sentimentality to the next.
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sisters and I used to rush out after lessons and ask him
what the weather was going to be, he would stop his
digging, look up at the sky, and say : ' Well, miss, it may
be fine and it may be wet ; and if the sun comes out, it
will be warmer.' After this solemn announcement he
would wipe his brow and resume his work, and we went
off, quite satisfied, to our well-known haunts in the
Hertfordshire woods, to gather Violets and Primroses for
our mother, who loved them. All this, you will see, laid
a very small foundation for any knowledge of garden-
ing; and yet, owing to the vivid character of the impressions
of youth, it left a memory that was very useful to me when
I took up gardening later in life. To this day I can smell
the tall white double Rockets that throve so well in the
damp garden, and scented the evening air. They grew
by the side of glorious bunches of Oriental Poppies and
the on-coming spikes of the feathery Spircea aruncus.
This garden had peculiar charms for us, because, though
we hardly realised it, such gardens were already
beginning to grow out of fashion, sacrificed to the new
bedding-out system, which altered the whole gardening
of Europe. I shall allude to this again. I can never
think of this old home without my thoughts recurring
to Hood's poem ' I remember ! I remember ! ' too well
known perhaps, even by the young, to justify my quoting
it here. Equally graven on my memory is a much less
familiar little poem my widowed mother used to say
to me as we walked together up and down the gravel
paths, with the primrose sky behind the tall Beeches of
the neighbouring park. For years I never knew where it
came from, nor where she learnt it in her own sentimental
youth. Not long ago I found it in a book of selections.
It was written by John Hamilton Reynolds, that warm
friend of poor Keats, who, as Mr. Sidney Colvin tells us
in his charming Life of the poet, never rose to any great
6 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN
eminence in either literature or law, and died in 1852, as
clerk of the county, at Newport, Isle of Wight. As Mr.
Colvin remarks, it is only in his association with Keats
that his name will live. Yet my mother loved the poem,
which is full of the sentiment of our little home : —
Go where the water glideth gently ever,
Glideth through meadows that the greenest be ;
Go, listen to our own beloved river,
And think of me.
Wander in forests where the small flower layeth
Its fairy gem beneath the giant tree ;
Listen to the dim brook pining while it playeth,
And think of me.
Watch when the sky is silver pale at even,
And the wind grieveth in the lonely tree ;
Go out beneath the solitary heaven,
And think of me.
And when the moon riseth as she were dreaming,
And treadeth with white feet the lulled sea,
Go, silent as a star beneath her beaming,
And think of me.
But enough of these old woman's recollections, and back
to the present, for the sentiment of one generation is very
apt to appear as worthless sentimentality to the next.