Botanico

               Deep in this green world visitors wander

                          listening to ancient lays,

                          that the birds have been singing here

                          for hundreds of years.  

                          Lilting notes that float gently down
                          from the tracery of trees and drift
                          through the stillness till they finally fade.
                         A silence of memories prevails.

                         Centuries of history rest in this soil

                         memories of passion and dreams

                         from the first sod turned, the first seeds sown,

                         when more than a garden was made.

                         Plantings were trialled here and theories tested,

                         collections preserved and described in new ways,

                         shared with the world and their lineages argued.

                         A science of plants was begun.

                        When the birds fall silent, their eulogy finished,   

                        the visitors leave, but the garden lives on,

                        its green world has fashioned a union still flourishing

                        where nature and culture are one.

                       500 years later the garden's enticing

                       for botanists to savour and scholars to probe,

                       but the greatest delight of this special place

                       ---its survival for us to embrace.