TREES AND FLOWERS OF BENGAL
This land is not my father land,
And yet I love it--for the hand
Of God hath left its mark sublime
On nature's face in every clime--
Though from home and friends we part,
Nature and the human heart
Still may soothe the wanderer's care--
And his God is every where
Beneath BENGALA'S azure skies,
No vallies sink, no green hills rise,
Like those the vast sea billows make--
The land is level as a lake[111]
But, oh, what giants of the wood
Wave their wide arms, or calmly brood
Each o'er his own deep rounded shade
When noon's fierce sun the breeze hath laid,
And all is still. On every plain
How green the sward, or rich the grain!
In jungle wild and garden trim,
And open lawn and covert dim,
What glorious shrubs and flowerets gay,
Bright buds, and lordly beasts of prey!
How prodigally Gunga pours
Her wealth of waves through verdant shores
O'er which the sacred peepul bends,
And oft its skeleton lines extends
Of twisted root, well laved and bare,
Half in water, half in air!
Fair scenes! where breeze and sun diffuse
The sweetest odours, fairest hues--
Where brightest the bright day god shows,
And where his gentle sister throws
Her softest spell on silent plain,
And stirless wood, and slumbering main--
Where the lucid starry sky
Opens most to mortal eye
The wide and mystic dome serene
Meant for visitants unseen,
A dream like temple, air built hall,
Where spirits pure hold festival!
Fair scenes! whence envious Art might steal
More charms than fancy's realms reveal--
Where the tall palm to the sky
Lifts its wreath triumphantly--
And the bambu's tapering bough
Loves its flexile arch to throw--
Where sleeps the favored lotus white,
On the still lake's bosom bright--
Where the champac's[112] blossoms shine,
Offerings meet for Brahma's shrine,
While the fragrance floateth wide
O'er velvet lawn and glassy tide--
Where the mangoe tope bestows
Night at noon day--cool repose,
Neath burning heavens--a hush profound
Breathing o'er the shaded ground--
Where the medicinal neem,
Of palest foliage, softest gleam,
And the small leafed tamarind
Tremble at each whispering wind--
And the long plumed cocoas stand
Like the princes of the land,
Near the betel's pillar slim,
With capital richly wrought and trim--
And the neglected wild sonail
Drops her yellow ringlets pale--
And light airs summer odours throw
From the bala's breast of snow--
Where the Briarean banyan shades
The crowded ghat, while Indian maids,
Untouched by noon tide's scorching rays,
Lave the sleek limb, or fill the vase
With liquid life, or on the head
Replace it, and with graceful tread
And form erect, and movement slow,
Back to their simple dwellings go--
[Walls of earth, that stoutly stand,
Neatly smoothed with wetted hand--
Straw roofs, yellow once and gay,
Turned by time and tempest gray--]
Where the merry minahs crowd
Unbrageous haunts, and chirrup loud--
And shrilly talk the parrots green
'Midst the thick leaves dimly seen--
And through the quivering foliage play,
Light as buds, the squirrels gay,
Quickly as the noontide beams
Dance upon the rippled streams--
Where the pariah[113] howls with fear,
If the white man passeth near--
Where the beast that mocks our race
With taper finger, solemn face,
In the cool shade sits at ease
Calm and grave as Socrates--
Where the sluggish buffaloe
Wallows in mud--and huge and slow,
Like massive cloud of sombre van,
Moves the land leviathan--[114]
Where beneath the jungle's screen
Close enwoven, lurks unseen
The couchant tiger--and the snake
His sly and sinuous way doth make
Through the rich mead's grassy net,
Like a miniature rivulet--
Where small white cattle, scattered wide,
Browse, from dawn to even tide--
Where the river watered soil
Scarce demands the ryot's toil--
And the rice field's emerald light
Out vies Italian meadows bright,--
Where leaves of every shape and dye,
And blossoms varied as the sky,
The fancy kindle,--fingers fair
That never closed on aught but air--
Hearts, that never heaved a sigh--
Wings, that never learned to fly--
Cups, that ne'er went table round--
Bells, that never rang with sound--
Golden crowns, of little worth--
Silver stars, that strew the earth--
Filagree fine and curious braid,
Breathed, not labored, grown, not made--
Tresses like the beams of morn
Without a thought of triumph worn--
Tongues that prate not--many an eye
Untaught midst hidden things to pry--
Brazen trumpets, long and bright,
That never summoned to the fight--
Shafts, that never pierced a side--
And plumes that never waved with pride;--
Scarcely Art a shape may know
But Nature here that shape can show.
Through this soft air, o'er this warm sod,
Stern deadly Winter never trod;
The woods their pride for centuries wear,
And not a living branch is bare;
Each field for ever boasts its bowers,
And every season brings its flowers.
D.L.R.
We all "uphold Adam's profession": we are all gardeners, either
practically or theoretically. The love of trees and flowers, and shrubs
and the green sward, with a summer sky above them, is an almost
universal sentiment. It may be smothered for a time by some one or other
of the innumerable chances and occupations of busy life; but a painting
in oils by Claude or Gainsborough, or a picture in words by Spenser or
Shakespeare that shall for ever
Live in description and look green in song,
or the sight of a few flowers on a window-sill in the city, can fill the
eye with tears of tenderness, or make the secret passion for nature
burst out again in sudden gusts of tumultuous pleasure and lighten up
the soul with images of rural beauty. There are few, indeed, who, when
they have the good fortune to escape on a summer holiday from the
crowded and smoky city and find themselves in the heart of a delicious
garden, have not a secret consciousness within them that the scene
affords them a glimpse of a true paradise below. Rich foliage and gay
flowers and rural quiet and seclusion and a smiling sun are ever
associated with ideas of earthly felicity.
And oh, if there be an Elysium on earth,
It is this, it is this!
The princely merchant and the petty trader, the soldier and the sailor,
the politician and the lawyer, the artist and the artisan, when they
pause for a moment in the midst of their career, and dream of the
happiness of some future day, almost invariably fix their imaginary
palace or cottage of delight in a garden, amidst embowering trees and
fragrant flowers. This disposition, even in the busiest men, to indulge
occasionally in fond anticipations of rural bliss--
In visions so profuse of pleasantness--
shows that God meant us to appreciate and enjoy the beauty of his works.
The taste for a garden is the one common feeling that unites us all.
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.
There is this much of poetical sensibility--of a sense of natural
beauty--at the core of almost every human heart. The monarch shares it
with the peasant, and Nature takes care that as the thirst for her
society is the universal passion, the power of gratifying it shall be
more or less within the reach of all.[115]
Our present Chief Justice, Sir Lawrence Peel, who has set so excellent
an example to his countrymen here in respect to Horticultural pursuits
and the tasteful embellishment of what we call our "compounds" and
who, like Sir William Jones and Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd, sees no reason
why Themis should be hostile to the Muses, has obliged me with the
following stanzas on the moral or rather religious influence of a
garden. They form a highly appropriate and acceptable contribution to
this volume.
I HEARD THY VOICE IN THE GARDEN.
That voice yet speaketh, heed it well--
But not in tones of wrath it chideth,
The moss rose, and the lily smell
Of God--in them his voice abideth.
There is a blessing on the spot
The poor man decks--the sun delighteth
To smile upon each homely plot,
And why? The voice of God inviteth.
God knows that he is worshipped there,
The chaliced cowslip's graceful bending
Is mute devotion, and the air
Is sweet with incense of her lending.
The primrose, aye the children's pet,
Pale bride, yet proud of its uprooting,
The crocus, snowdrop, violet
And sweet-briar with its soft leaves shooting.
There nestles each--a Preacher each--
(Oh heart of man! be slow to harden)
Each cottage flower in sooth doth teach
God walketh with us in the garden.
|