Spring arrived briefly this morning in Dartington (but had fled by tea time) and the sun was warm, the trees full of chattering birds and the playing fields full of footballers! Dartington Hall gardens get more beautiful with every passing week and now have the first flowering magnolia and delicate fritillaria, to name just two new arrivals. If only I had an elevated tower truck and could show you how beautiful the pink petals of those towering trees are against a pure blue sky. Or if only I had progressed further in my plans to mount very small cameras on snails or bumble bees and get underneath a shy flower…

However, I can offer the latest in my series on Dartington robins, yet more crocus and the first stanza of Keats poem Endymion, which does a much better job than I could ever do in celebrating the power and spirit of natural beauty.

For the rest of this small photo album (including my favourite grape hyacinth), please visit me on Facebook…


A Thing of Beauty (Endymion)
A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its lovliness 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, 
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth 
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, 
Of all the unhealthy and o’er-darkn’d 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; 
An endless fountain of immortal drink, 
Pouring unto us from the heaven’s brink. 
John Keats