All Nature has a feeling

My two little spaniels Paddy and Lola bounce around me whilst the labradors have taken off together, arguing noisily over who has the tennis ball. They are easily distracted by any nearby beguiling scent so will undoubtedly soon lose it, leaving it in the dense undergrowth of wild thyme and marjoram.

 There are few better ways to begin a summer’s day than to set off early along the winding path that leads downhill through the middle of the wildflower meadow to the south of the castle. “Everything good, everything magical happens between the months of June and August.”

The morning light is clear; the longer flower heads swing and nod amongst the slim rippling grasses whilst the summer orchestra of birdsong is in full voice even if all the contributors remain hidden amongst the mass of green leafed trees at the top of the walk. The scent of summer seems to rise from the ground and say welcome to a beautiful world.  

 There is such boundless variety in the natural tapestry of summertime, with each mosaic part so unique and complex that it seems impossible that it came to be by random chance. These wildflowers and meadows provide bees, butterflies and other pollinators with food throughout the year. On a single day in summer, one acre of wildflower meadow can contain three million flowers which in total will produce around 1kg of nectar sugar.

There are things to touch, to smell, to hear and to see and the joy it engenders is deeply rooted in the best part of our subconscious. The resilience and humble beauty of these unassuming flowers is the living poetry of an English summer and as such has been written into our language and drama from poets such as John Clare, Gerald Manley Hopkins and, of course, Shakespeare.  

Shakespeare's plays and poems are rich in wildflowers from violets to rosemary, eglantine, woodbine (honeysuckle) and meadowsweet, the list is endless. “Hot lavender, mints, savoury, marjoram; The marigold, that goes to bed wi’ the sun.,” references to the “fairy favours”, to the secret of the flower’s scent and the meaning of each flower are incorporated into many of his plays and poems. 

The language and knowledge of flowers was far more prominent in his time, and his contemporaries would know that rosemary was symbolic of remembrance, that violets represented faithfulness and fennel marital infidelity whilst daisies were a sign of innocence. Shakespeare had a deep knowledge of the English countryside and Elizabethan floral culture which these days has to be taught before all the nuances of his words can be understood. 

Shakespeare and his contemporaries would be able to distinguish and know the names of the wildflowers which we grow here at Highclere. They have such marvellous names including Devil's-bit Scabious, Viper's Bugloss, Lady's Bedstraw and Fairy Flax and most of them have a purpose or a value. These flowers grow well on the thin chalky hillside, and they flourish to the left and right of my morning perambulation.

One of my personal favourites is the 18th century English poet, John Clare who led an impoverished and troubled life despite his genius, but who wrote so many beautiful lines, understanding the connection between flowers and human feelings:

All nature has a feeling: woods, fields, brooks
 Are life eternal; and in silence they
 Speak happiness beyond the reach of books;
 There's nothing mortal in them; their decay
 Is the green life of change; to pass away
 And come again in blooms revivified.
 Its birth was heaven, eternal is its stay,
 And with the sun and moon shall still abide
 Beneath their day and night and heaven wide.

 It is a privilege to be able to walk each day in such surrounding rather than having to hurry from place to place inside a metal box (car) and a beauty that is easily missed by going for a run plugged into air pods.