a thing of beauty

for various reasons, japanese gardens spread throughout the west, and it was all due to the opening of japan. water lily gardens were planted throughout the west, the brooklyn botanical garden being the first public one, and they became a common symbol in the arts and crafts of the time.

as we've discussed here earlier, part of the impetus for this happening was the japanese gardens installed at the various world expositions which happened with regularity around the us and europe. the other reason was the emigration of a large japanese population to america's west coast. among them were students of their own culture and, probably most importantly, were gardeners.

AFFIRMATION

To grow old is to lose everything.
Aging, everybody knows it.
Even when we are young,
we glimpse it sometimes, and nod our heads
when a grandfather dies.
Then we row for years on the midsummer
pond, ignorant and content. But a marriage,
that began without harm, scatters
into debris on the shore,
and a friend from school drops
cold on a rocky strand.
If a new love carries us
past middle age, our wife will die
at her strongest and most beautiful.
New women come and go. All go.
The pretty lover who announces
that she is temporary
is temporary. The bold woman,
middle-aged against our old age,
sinks under an anxiety she cannot withstand.
Another friend of decades estranges himself
in words that pollute thirty years.
Let us stifle under mud at the pond's edge
and affirm that it is fitting
and delicious to lose everything.

Donald Hall

Reproduced by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company.
Copyright © 2002 by Donald Hall. All rights reserved.

From ENDYMION

A thing of beauty is a
joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases;
it will never
Pass into nothingness;
but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
pite of despondence,
of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and
o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching:
yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty
moves away the pall
From our dark spirits.
Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of
the dooms
We have imagined for the
mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have
heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

John Keats