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The Garden
From the author of The Land, this poem is a much more personal and symbolic offering. Set against the backdrop of war, the seasons in the garden represent the seasons of life.
136 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1946
3 people are currently reading
169 people want to read
About the author
Vita Sackville-West
130 books480 followersNovels of British writer Victoria Mary Sackville-West, known as Vita, include
The Edwardians
(1930) and
All Passion Spent
(1931).
This prolific English author, poet, and memoirist in the early 20th century lived not so privately.
While married to the diplomat Harold Nicolson, she conducted a series of scandalous amorous liaisons with many women, including the brilliant Virginia Woolf. They had an open marriage. Both Sackville-West and her husband had same-sex relationships. Her exuberant aristocratic life was one of inordinate privilege and way ahead of her time. She frequently traveled to Europe in the company of one or the other of her lovers and often dressed as a man to be able to gain access to places where only the couples could go. Gardening, like writing, was a passion Vita cherished with the certainty of a vocation: she wrote books on the topic and constructed the gardens of the castle of Sissinghurst, one of England's most beautiful gardens at her home.
She published her first book Poems of East and West in 1917. She followed this with a novel, Heritage, in 1919. A second novel, The Heir (1922), dealt with her feelings about her family. Her next book, Knole and the Sackvilles (1922), covered her family history. The Edwardians (1930) and All Passion Spent (1931) are perhaps her best known novels today. In the latter, the elderly Lady Slane courageously embraces a long suppressed sense of freedom and whimsy after a lifetime of convention. In 1948 she was appointed a Companion of Honour for her services to literature. She continued to develop her garden at Sissinghurst Castle and for many years wrote a weekly gardening column for The Observer. In 1955 she was awarded the gold Veitch medal of the Royal Horticultural Society. In her last decade she published a further biography, Daughter of France (1959) and a final novel, No Signposts in the Sea (1961).
She died of cancer on June 2, 1962.
This prolific English author, poet, and memoirist in the early 20th century lived not so privately.
While married to the diplomat Harold Nicolson, she conducted a series of scandalous amorous liaisons with many women, including the brilliant Virginia Woolf. They had an open marriage. Both Sackville-West and her husband had same-sex relationships. Her exuberant aristocratic life was one of inordinate privilege and way ahead of her time. She frequently traveled to Europe in the company of one or the other of her lovers and often dressed as a man to be able to gain access to places where only the couples could go. Gardening, like writing, was a passion Vita cherished with the certainty of a vocation: she wrote books on the topic and constructed the gardens of the castle of Sissinghurst, one of England's most beautiful gardens at her home.
She published her first book Poems of East and West in 1917. She followed this with a novel, Heritage, in 1919. A second novel, The Heir (1922), dealt with her feelings about her family. Her next book, Knole and the Sackvilles (1922), covered her family history. The Edwardians (1930) and All Passion Spent (1931) are perhaps her best known novels today. In the latter, the elderly Lady Slane courageously embraces a long suppressed sense of freedom and whimsy after a lifetime of convention. In 1948 she was appointed a Companion of Honour for her services to literature. She continued to develop her garden at Sissinghurst Castle and for many years wrote a weekly gardening column for The Observer. In 1955 she was awarded the gold Veitch medal of the Royal Horticultural Society. In her last decade she published a further biography, Daughter of France (1959) and a final novel, No Signposts in the Sea (1961).
She died of cancer on June 2, 1962.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 2, 2011
If you love gardens, if you love flowers, if you love beautiful words of poetry, this is the book for you.
July 7, 2021
"Too slight a thing for comment; slight, and usual, / A shot in the dark, fired by a hand unseen / At a life unknown; finding, or missing, the mark? / Bringing death? Bringing hurt? Teaching, perhaps / escape... / Since the shot was not at our hearts, since the mark / was not / Your heart or mine, not this time, my companion" (30, Sometimes When Night).
I had no idea what to expect when approaching this text, but I was eager to gain a glimpse into the mind that so captivated Virginia Woolf. While I felt Vita shone cleverly at a line-level (i.e. "every bee becomes a drunken lover") with instances of really nice diction, the collection as a whole, and often entire poems, felt meandering and lackluster. There is potential here, but it doesn't feel channeled. At times, the style and rhyme scheme appear to be formal and constrained, but then there are interruptions like "Dig-dog! Dig-dog! Dig-dog! like bells it chimes" and the reader is lost. Maybe it's all ultimately a jumble fitting for Vita's infamously wild personality; even Woolf critiqued her and felt she wrote too quickly and often without refinement. Even so, the poignancy of the line above will haunt me: "since the mark / was not / Your heart or mine, not this time."
"And know then how the heart can ache / With pining for the woods and clouds of home. / If I could take my England, and could wring / One living moment from her simple year, / One moment only, whether of place or time, / —One winter coppice feathery with rime, / One shred of dawn in spring— / Then should my voice find echo in English ear; / Then might I say, 'That which I love, I am'" (69, Summer).
I had no idea what to expect when approaching this text, but I was eager to gain a glimpse into the mind that so captivated Virginia Woolf. While I felt Vita shone cleverly at a line-level (i.e. "every bee becomes a drunken lover") with instances of really nice diction, the collection as a whole, and often entire poems, felt meandering and lackluster. There is potential here, but it doesn't feel channeled. At times, the style and rhyme scheme appear to be formal and constrained, but then there are interruptions like "Dig-dog! Dig-dog! Dig-dog! like bells it chimes" and the reader is lost. Maybe it's all ultimately a jumble fitting for Vita's infamously wild personality; even Woolf critiqued her and felt she wrote too quickly and often without refinement. Even so, the poignancy of the line above will haunt me: "since the mark / was not / Your heart or mine, not this time."
"And know then how the heart can ache / With pining for the woods and clouds of home. / If I could take my England, and could wring / One living moment from her simple year, / One moment only, whether of place or time, / —One winter coppice feathery with rime, / One shred of dawn in spring— / Then should my voice find echo in English ear; / Then might I say, 'That which I love, I am'" (69, Summer).
July 24, 2017
Victoria Sackville West(1892-1962)•
Ranked #295 in the top 500 poets internationally!
'The Honorable Lady Nicolson' English poet and novelist, born into an old aristocratic family, she was the chief model for Virginia Woolf's novel 'Orlando' from 1928. Her best known poem, 'The land', was awarded the Hawthorne Prize in 1927.She is also well- known as much for her creation of the gardens at Sissinghurst Castle with her husband, Harold Nicolson!
Vita Sackville-West wrote about the Kentish countryside in the most enchanting way ever!
And the Garden is no exception when real seasons represent symbolically seasons of our inner soul!
Out of inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh-iU...
Ranked #295 in the top 500 poets internationally!
'The Honorable Lady Nicolson' English poet and novelist, born into an old aristocratic family, she was the chief model for Virginia Woolf's novel 'Orlando' from 1928. Her best known poem, 'The land', was awarded the Hawthorne Prize in 1927.She is also well- known as much for her creation of the gardens at Sissinghurst Castle with her husband, Harold Nicolson!
Vita Sackville-West wrote about the Kentish countryside in the most enchanting way ever!
And the Garden is no exception when real seasons represent symbolically seasons of our inner soul!
Out of inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh-iU...
October 8, 2020
It is not Winter, not the cold we fear;
It is the dreadful echo of our void,
The malice all around us, manifest;
The Garden by Vita Sackville-West seems to be a smaller, earlier version of The Land with less geography. The poem was published in 1946 and falls in line with Sackville-West's essays and writing of the time. She wrote that during the war gardening was an escape from the destruction of the war. It was creating beauty and a reminder that there were better things in the world even amidst the destruction.
Like The Land, the poem is divided into four seasons starting in winter. Each season is described in the eyes of a gardener. There are gardening tips gently mixed into the description of the seasons as well as almost a spiritual feeling for each season. The structure is a mix of non-rhyming poetry with random rhyme schemes added for effect. Even when the rhymes are in couplet form, they do not seem forced and help pull the reader into the rhythm of the season. The poem creates smooth transitions into each season much like nature, there are no abrupt changes:
But winter passes. March is not yet done
Before the solace of a warmer sun
Strokes on our hands and takes us by surprise
With a forgotten touch on naked skin.
and summer moves into fall:
The medlar and the quince's globe of gold.
How rich and fat those yellow fruits do hang!
They were light blossom once, a light-foot girl,
All cream and muslin once, now turned to age
Mellow with fine experience.
Although the poem centers on the near Sackville-West includes her thoughts on the nativity in the winter section. The Garden is a well thought out and executed poem and one that manages to live beyond the period of post-war Britain. It may be the today's wars, road rage, crumbling infrastructure, workplace stress, and other modern facts of life still need something like The Garden to remind us of better things.
It is the dreadful echo of our void,
The malice all around us, manifest;
The Garden by Vita Sackville-West seems to be a smaller, earlier version of The Land with less geography. The poem was published in 1946 and falls in line with Sackville-West's essays and writing of the time. She wrote that during the war gardening was an escape from the destruction of the war. It was creating beauty and a reminder that there were better things in the world even amidst the destruction.
Like The Land, the poem is divided into four seasons starting in winter. Each season is described in the eyes of a gardener. There are gardening tips gently mixed into the description of the seasons as well as almost a spiritual feeling for each season. The structure is a mix of non-rhyming poetry with random rhyme schemes added for effect. Even when the rhymes are in couplet form, they do not seem forced and help pull the reader into the rhythm of the season. The poem creates smooth transitions into each season much like nature, there are no abrupt changes:
But winter passes. March is not yet done
Before the solace of a warmer sun
Strokes on our hands and takes us by surprise
With a forgotten touch on naked skin.
and summer moves into fall:
The medlar and the quince's globe of gold.
How rich and fat those yellow fruits do hang!
They were light blossom once, a light-foot girl,
All cream and muslin once, now turned to age
Mellow with fine experience.
Although the poem centers on the near Sackville-West includes her thoughts on the nativity in the winter section. The Garden is a well thought out and executed poem and one that manages to live beyond the period of post-war Britain. It may be the today's wars, road rage, crumbling infrastructure, workplace stress, and other modern facts of life still need something like The Garden to remind us of better things.
April 24, 2022
Un viaggio poetico (non facile) tra le stagioni di un giardino, descritto con particolari di piante e arbusti, animaletti, colori meteorologici e attrezzi, e tra le stagioni metaforiche della vita umana. Alcuni passaggi (quello sulla guerra ad esempio o quello sulla forza della primavera) davvero notevoli.
April 7, 2020
An odd mix of striking seasonal poetry and mundane gardening advice in iambic pentameter. Somewhat unfocused, but there are some gems in here.
January 11, 2024
loving poems
the seasonal theme is so cute
the seasonal theme is so cute
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews