These gardens may be called the gardens of the respectable working classes.
quote by Robert Fortune

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Related quotes
Quit My Gardens, O Crows!
quit my gardens, o crows!
&
o noisy quarrelsome crows!
quit my gardens-
o birds of all feathers!
of different melodies!
of lonely bushes and thickets!
of far-away lands!
come here! visit me!
grace my gardens and groves!
nay, all yours, your heavens!
no, ours!
sing singly; sing in chorus!
melt in sorrowful strains;
and in joyous tunes!
but o hoarse-throated crows!
vacate my gardens
and retreat to the forest!
poem by Sundaram Chandrakalaadhar

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Laburnums
OVER old walls the Laburnums
hang cones of fire;
Laburnums that grow out of old
mould in old gardens:
Old maids and old men who have savings or pensions have
Shuttered themselves in the pales of old gardens.
The gardens grow wild; out of their mould the Laburnums
Draw cones of fire.
And we, who've no lindens, no palms, no cedars of Lebanon,
Rejoice you have gardens with mould, old men and old maids:
The bare and the dusty streets have now the Laburnums,
Have now cones of fire!
poem by Padraic Colum

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Lost Horizons
The last horizons I can see are filled with bars and factories
And in them all we fight to stay awake...
Drink enough of anything to make this world look new again
Drunk drunk drunk in the gardens and the graves
She had nothing left to say so she said she loved me
I stood there grateful for the lie...
Drink enough of anything to make this girl look new again
Drunk drunk drunk in the gardens and the graves
Turn summer trees to bones and ice
Turn insect songs against the night
With words we build and words we break
Im drunk drunk drunk in the gardens and the graves...
Drink enough of anything to make myself look new again
Drunk drunk drunk in the gardens and the graves
song performed by by Gin Blossoms

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Embracing the Roses
Crisp blue sky
Parks
The night
Their love
Rustled
In dewy
Greening gardens
…unobserved
(Mountaintop Gardens, Tennessee
July 27,2006)
poem by Debora Short

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Respectable Street
Heard the neighbour slam his car door,
Don't he realise this is respectable street?
What d'you think he bought that car for?
'cause he realise this is respectable street
Now they talk about absorption,
In cosmopolitan proportions to their daughters,
As they speak of child prevention,
And immaculate receptions on their portable,
Sony entertainment centres.
Heard the neighbour slam his car door,
Don't he realise this is respectable street?
What d'you think he bought that car for?
'cause he realise this is respectable street
Now she speak about diseases,
And which proposition pleases best her old man,
Avon lady fills the creases,
When she manages to squeeze in past the caravans,
That never move from their front gardens.
It's in the order of their hedgerows,
It's in the way their curtains open and close,
It's in the look they give you down their nose,
All part of decency's jigsaw i suppose.
Sunday church and they look fetching,
Saturday night saw him stretching over our fence,
Bang the wall for me to turn down,
I can see them with their stern frown,
As they dispense the kind of look that says they're perfect.
Heard the neighbour slam his car door,
Don't he realise this is respectable street?
What d'you think he bought that car for?
'cause he realise this is respectable street
song performed by by Xtc

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Hope Gardens Every Whisper
Hope gardens every whisper
Ever thought thoughtful flowers
A brocade of desire
Like dew-fall they are there to wander
The landscape of your dreams
To filter down and replenish
Every fallen leaf thereafter
Every jasmine is a star-gazer
White and pure in the now and hereafter
Hope gardens eternal
Just listen to the children's laughter
Their sudden mist of tears may fall
But search what happens after
Their limbs move gentler than the rain
When they in your arms are renewed
With your love again
Hope gardens every whisper
To a rainbows end we all must surrender
Pliant with; root in the earth, seeking heaven.
poem by Mark Heathcote

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Green Fingers
People have gardens, both large and small,
Whilst flat dwellers have no garden at all.
Some people love to surround their homes
With comical-looking, little garden gnomes.
A few gardens boast fantastic water-features,
Or a large array of stone, woodland creatures.
To make their garden nice, some folk really do try,
Whilst other gardens really are a sight for sore eyes.
Some folk really wish their garden was just not there,
And, about them, they, very obviously, just do not care.
Without a garden, some people would feel really lost,
And they keep them looking nice, whatever the cost.
Some people are blessed: they have green fingers,
And, in their gardens, for hours, they love to linger.
When some people pull on their gardening gloves,
They tend their gardens with such heartfelt love.
People love to spend their time sowing seeds,
Trimming their hedges, and pulling up weeds.
Some tend flower beds, upon bended knee.
Some grow delicious fruit upon their trees.
The gardener's nightmare is the garden pest:
To eradicate them all, they do their best.
Some people love to escape to their sheds,
Where they can think, and clear their heads.
In their gardens, people love to spend time,
But they like it best, when the weather is fine.
When all of their gardening chores are done,
Some people love to sit and relax in the sun.
Time spent in the garden, always really flies;
The benefits of gardening cannot be denied.
poem by Angela Wybrow

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Discern....
words are grasses
they cover the dead
and make us a green patch of plains
and rise up
for hills dressed for a beautiful gaze
of the sun
discern then
for i make a lot of grass gardens
underneath
you keep on thinking what i must have buried
guessing
about dead frogs and chickens and even
bodies of lovers
perhaps (but this is all murderous
and too harsh
for me, for i am as you know
a man of peace
and the law)
i have lots of grass gardens and discern from them
the women that stand there
and all those who love me from the beginning of
my poem
and the end of those plots and stories
that i have long told you
i am not that wicked and witches hate me
for all these
i have only love to offer
and they all love me in return without even
those gardens of grass
those words that
conceal
those that you have not understood and
cannot kill
poem by Ric S. Bastasa

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When Gardens Begin To Die
When gardens begin to die
In these scorching sun and times
Where shall we go to smell flowers sweet?
When gardens die for a season
I do not see a change, I see only an end.
Some one ordered me to be pessimistic.
A flying bird comes down to my abode
And asks all of a sudden, `How are you friend? `
I tell her a lie, ` I am happy in my garden`.
The clouds have a promise to fulfill
They must break into water drops.
To let our plants live in a garden.
poem by M.d Dinesh Nair

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What A Wonderful God
What a wonderful God we have
That love us
And at the same time we serve our God
By worshiping him and praising him
For all the things that he does for us
Like growing our food in the Summer in our gardens
With his holy hands
And by bringing the rain to water our food that we planted in our Gardens
But also bringing the sun to grow our food because our food can't Grow without the sun either
poem by Aldo Kraas

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Spaces
Space
No center, no above, no below
Ceaselessly devouring and engendering itself
Whirlpool space
And drop into height
Spaces
Clarities steeply cut
Suspended
By the night's flank
Black gardens of rock crystal
Flowering on a rod of smoke
White gardens exploding in the air
Space
One space opening up
Corolla
And dissolving
Space in space
All is nowhere
Place of impalpable nuptials
poem by Octavio Paz

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Surprise in Japan - Tokyo Imperial Palace
Tokyo Imperial Palace gardens
a guardsman salutes me
like he would a VVIP
Tokyo Imperial Palace gardens
a guardsman extends me
a royal salute
poem by John Tiong Chunghoo

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Forbidden Territory for M lady Kelly Houseman
I tend my gardens on the moon
The far side which the earth can’t see.
Although I fear that very soon
astronauts will visit me.
I’ll hide my gardens from their eyes.
This is a place they should not be.
This is no time for compromise.
I will repel them forcibly
I value highly solitude
and my hard won serenity
I disdain men’s attitude.
They’re lacking in maturity.
A member of an older race
I’ve paid my dues and earned the right
To protect my own living space
which I keep hidden out of sight.
Intruders I won’t tolerate
I will destroy them instantly
and leave no trace as to their fate.
If they intrude impudently.
I tend my gardens on the moon
with loving care contentedly
and ask from fate one single boon.
No astronaut should bother me.
I live alone because I choose
Preferring my own company
for others I have little use.
In perfect self sufficiency.
13-Aug-08
http: // blog.myspace.com/poeticpiers
poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg

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Capp
You are like a person with many names,
But iam called Capp in the land of flowers;
So meet me at Tivoli's Gardens,
And let us talk about this love.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis

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The House Sparrows
The house sparrows in Spring under house eaves build their nests of hay
And renowned for their chirping they chirp all the day
In cypress and hedges from predators they hide
Familiar in gardens they are known Worldwide.
Brought to this Land by people from Lands far away
Around human dwellings they are happy to stay
Of shyness and lack of self confidence house sparrows are free
And on their worth or lack of worth some choose to disagree.
Originally from Africa of the weaver family
In gardens and Parklands them one often see
Familiar in their feathers of light gray and brown
They search for crumbs under the park benches in the parks of the Town.
The common house sparrows are birds everyone know
Familiar to gardens and to the hedgerow
Classified as songbirds though they don't have a song
They are famed as chirpers they chirp all day long.
poem by Francis Duggan

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The Rondel Of The Dying Roses
It is the time when roses die,
They die in gardens, and in me –
They were so full of life and glee,
And now they droop with a faint sigh.
Through everything cold shivers fly.
Despondency’s in all we see.
It is the time when roses die –
They die in gardens, and in me.
Beneath the dismal twilight sky
There eddies many a faint sigh;
And towards the long night to be
They gently bend their heads so shy –
It is the time when roses die.
poem by Alexandru Macedonski from The Poem Of Rondels (1927), translated by Dan Duţescu

Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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White Crosses
Well I packed all of my things into this blanket
To call this year to earn coyotes fill
Kiss my wife and kids goodbye choke back the quiver in my breath
And took my first steps into this corridor of death
If Im lucky I will make it to a drain
With 500 of my brothers, I would share the strain
Of standing in this boxcar praying for rain
Its the only the way we will quench our thirst
[Chorus:]
In these gardens of white crosses
Growing in the California sand
In these gardens of white crosses
We are the children of poverty trying to a make a stand
If we make it past the border, we will scatter
Vanish just like smoke in autumn wind
I will run until my color will not matter
Hopin I can find some work or possibly a friend
There are others who have made it here
They will show me how to find a job and a place to lay my head
And I cannot be concerned with dreams of my children
For there are 5 others in line for my bed
[Chorus:]
In these gardens of white crosses
Growing in the California sand
In these gardens of white crosses
We are the children of poverty trying to a make a stand
I will gladly pick your peaches or clean your hotel rooms
I will do the jobs American wont do
With cell phones to their heads and $700 dollar shoes
I will risk my life cause its all I have to lose
Let the devil in the mountains promise me a ride
Found an 18 wheeler and put all of us inside
And just outside of victory, 19 of us died
None of our bodies hit the floor
And so my wife she still wonders when Im coming home
The riches that I promised her for leaving her alone
I said I would send her all that I could save
But I ended up in California in an unknown grave
[Chorus:]
In these gardens of white crosses growing in the California sand
In these gardens of white crosses we are the children of poverty trying to a make a stand
[repeat]
song performed by by Edwin McCain

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Sweet Thing
And I will stroll the merry way
And jump the hedges first
And I will drink the clear
Clean water for to quench my thirst
And I shall watch the ferry-boats
And theyll get high
On a bluer ocean
Against tomorrows sky
And I will never grow so old again
And I will walk and talk
In gardens all wet with rain
Oh sweet thing, sweet thing
My, my, my, my, my sweet thing
And I shall drive my chariot
Down your streets and cry
hey, its me, Im dynamite
And I dont know why
And you shall take me strongly
In your arms again
And I will not remember
That I even felt the pain.
We shall walk and talk
In gardens all misty and wet with rain
And I will never, never, never
Grow so old again.
Oh sweet thing, sweet thing
My, my, my, my, my sweet thing
And I will raise my hand up
Into the night time sky
And count the stars
Thats shining in your eye
Just to dig it all an not to wonder
Thats just fine
And Ill be satisfied
Not to read in between the lines
And I will walk and talk
In gardens all wet with rain
And I will never, ever, ever, ever
Grow so old again.
Oh sweet thing, sweet thing
Sugar-baby with your champagne eyes
And your saint-like smile....
song performed by by Van Morrison

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Sweet Thing
(van morrison)
Originally performed by van morrison. jeff performed it live at he palace, melbourne on february 29, 1996. he used to play it also with gods and monsters (the group formed by jeff and gary lucas) in 1992.
And I will stroll the merry way
And jump the hedges first
And I will drink the clear
Clean water for to quench my thirst
And I shall watch the ferry-boats
And theyll get high
On a bluer ocean
Against tomorrows sky
And I will never grow so old again
And I will walk and talk
In gardens all wet with rain
Hey, its me, Im dynamite
And I dont know why
We shall walk and talk
In gardens all misty and wet with rain
My, my, my, my, my sweet thing
And I will raise my hand up
Into the night time sky
And count the stars
Thats shining in your eye
And Ill be satisfied
In gardens all wet with rain
And I will never, ever, ever, ever
Grow so old again.
Oh sweet thing, sweet thing
Sugar baby with your champagne eyes
And your saint-like smile...
song performed by by Jeff Buckley

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A Knocker
There are those who grow
gardens in their heads
paths lead from their hair
to sunny and white cities
it's easy for them to write
they close their eyes
immediately schools of images
stream down their foreheads
my imagination
is a piece of board
my sole instrument
is a wooden stick
I strike the board
it answer me
yes--yes
no--no
for others the green bell of a tree
the blue bell of water
I have a knocker
from unprotected gardens
I thump on the board
and it prompts me
with the moralists dry poem
yes--yes
no--no
poem by Zbigniew Herbert

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