This is a verse from Tennyson’s In Memoriam A.H.H.
Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation’s final law
Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek’d against his creed
I haven’t entirely unraveled what it means. Poetry can be tricky to interpret but perhaps it’s relevant to the recent installation of two bird feeders in my small back garden.
Some tits have been breakfasting happily – I think of the Great and Coal variety but they dart away too quickly for me to be sure and they like to eat early, before I’m at my most observant. Seed gets spilt on the paving below the feeders and a pigeon was quick to discover this.
Less than an hour after I took this, my hospitality unwittingly led to the pigeon’s savage death. Feathers all over the place and a decapitated corpse with most of its breast eaten was all that remained after being ambushed by a cat. I fear this is only the first casualty in a one-sided cat and pigeon game. The small garden birds, I hope, flit around too fast to be killed.
Meanwhile on the other side of the garden, my neighbour has built a fine wall to replace a rickety wooden fence. The fence had been smothered by a Chilean potato vine that invaded his garden, taking a special fancy to his washing line and also spread to my back wall and grew into the jasmine. It was an excellent opportunity to uproot it and I bought a wisteria (floribunda Alba) in March. The plantsman reckoned it was about two years old and wouldn’t flower for at least two more years. However, there are some small racemes and I expect some lateral growth this summer to cover the bare bricks. While waiting for it to grow an adjacent honeysuckle will provide some colour and foliage. Around the edge of the garden the agapanthus seems to be flourishing. I under-planted it with alliums last year but bought the wrong sort; much too small so they are lost in the agapanthus foliage. Nil desperandum; I will get a bigger and better variety and plant them in the autumn.
