When Betty Makes A Garden Poem by Matilda Ann Aston

When Betty makes a garden,
With shrubs and bushes planned,
I’d like to be upon the spot,
And lend a helping hand –

For when the Spring and Summer
Call forth the blossoms there,
I know in Betty’s garden
I’d surely have a share
She’d give me showery wattle,
As gold as dawning day,
And Crimson Rambler roses warm,
And cool and snowy May;

Long chains of bright Laburnum,
And butter-coloured Broom,
And thus would Betty’s garden
Make sunshine in my room.

If I were Betty’s neighbour,
And full her garden grown,
I’d sniff the breathing odours rich
In through my window blown,
From Loquat flower and Almond,
And Oleander tall,
From Laurel and from Lilac,
The dearest of them all.

Yes, straight from Betty’s garden
She’d bring me Lilac flower,
In mauve, like stately lady
In old-time lady’s bower;
And wreaths of Honeysuckle
She’d pilfer from the bee,
And Jasmine from the trellis,
To share them all with me.

When Betty makes a garden
For shrubs and bushes planned,
I’d like to be Godmother there,
And name the lovely band-
Thus I in Betty’s garden
Would have a rightful share,
And in my quiet chamber
I’d breathe its incense rare.