A collection of scots poems on several occasions ::

A new born world the Gard'ners task began!
Fair art coeval with the first made man!
Adam's intendant of the blissful bow'rs,
The ever-greens, and sweet ambrosial flow'rs:
God breath'd a beauty on its banks, and he
Institute there the sacramental tree:
There God and man the fed'ral paction made;
For the first temple was a silent shade.

Sin sow'd the weeds which blasted Eden's bloom,
The pois'nous plants usurp the roses room;
God's wat'ring pans, the clouds, this garden lost,
'Tis sunk in sea, and sea without a coast.

Trees lift their heads again, and floods asswage,
The peacful dove flies with the gard'ner's badge,
An olive sprig. Noah a vineyard made,
And plants and prunes, and consecrates the spade.
A gard'ner got th'old world and the new,
Ere teeming nature felt the lab'ring plow.
Such matchless honour's to the gard'ners giv'n,
Christ's from his loins, and all the saints in heaven.
The wisest king that ever liv'd on earth,
Was botanist, a gard'ner from his birth:
Of all productions his learn'd herbal spoke,
From dwarfish hyssop, to the giant oak.

The eastern sages, when they heard the news
Of Bethl'em's babe, born monarch of the Jews,
Directed by a star, they reach'd his seat,
And offer'd herbage kneeling at his feet.
They brought no books with laws or logic stor'd,
Present a little garden to our Lord,
Myrrh and frankincense; these the senses feast,
With all the spicy odours of the east.

'Twas to a garden Jesus went to pray,
In drops of blood a sweating Saviour lay;

So pounded plants diffuse their rich perfumes,
And wounded trees sweat aromatic gums.
To wean us from the world's milkless breast,
And prove its pride and pageantry all jest;
Christ bids us to a blow of flowers repair,
And view the lilies in their vernal air;
Their raiment never can wear out of mode,
Still smiling in the livery of a God:
Insulting kings of clay with crowned heads,
The weavers vassals wrapt in greasy threads.

A dying Jesus at his latest hour,
Painted his suff'rings on the passion flower.

Kings sick of painful pomp, and regal strife,
Threw down their scepters for the pruning knife;
Parties at court from an intestine war,
Killing in camps, and wrangling at the bar.
The merchant smuggles, and the tradesman lies;
Pulpits are crush'd with weight of heresies;
Of love and concord gard'ners are possest,
They're solar plants within the gard'ner's breast.
The holy hermit safely shelters there,
And vocal makes the cyprus grove with pray'r,
And holy virgins, to a God resign'd,
In prayer and plants immortal pleasures find;
In rich embroideries, copy o'er the flowers,
And make their needles praise the divine powers.
Parent of vig'rous age, and grave of care,
Sweet solitude and sacred silence there,
Nurse to devotion; therefore every day,
The gard'ner, who hath grace, will humbly pray,
“O tree of life, O plant of high renown,
“On gard'ners pour thy heav'nly influence down,
“Bless thou our seeds, our seasons, and our soil,
“We'll praise thee by our philosophic toil.”

University of Virginia Library

The Gardeners Honours.