Our England is a garden that is full of stately views, |
Of borders, beds and shrubberies and lawns and avenues, |
With statues on the terraces and peacocks strutting by; |
But the Glory of the Garden lies in more than meets the eye. |
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For where the old thick laurels grow, along the thin red wall, |
You will find the tool- and potting-sheds which are the heart of all; |
The cold-frames and the hot-houses, the dungpits and the tanks, |
The rollers, carts and drain-pipes, with the barrows and the planks. |
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And there you'll see the gardeners, the men and ’prentice boys |
Told off to do as they are bid and do it without noise; |
For, except when seeds are planted and we shout to scare the birds, |
The Glory of the Garden it abideth not in words. |
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And some can pot begonias and some can bud a rose, |
And some are hardly fit to trust with anything that grows; |
But they can roll and trim the lawns and sift the sand and loam, |
For the Glory of the Garden occupieth all who come. |
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Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made |
By singing: - «Oh, how beautiful!» and sitting in the shade, |
While better men than we go out and start their working lives |
At grubbing weeds from gravel-paths with broken dinner knives. |
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There’s not a pair of legs so thin, there’s not a head so thick, |
There’s not a hand so weak and white, nor yet a heart so sick, |
But it can find some needful job that’s crying to be done, |
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Then seek your job with thankfulness and work till further orders, |
If it’s only netting strawberries of killing slugs on borders; |
And when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden. |
You will find yourself a partner in the Glory of the Garden. |
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’s work is done upon his knees, |
So when your work is finished, you can wash your hands and pray |
For the Glory of the Garden, that it may not pass away! |
And the Glory of the Garden it shall never pass away! |