The house wears its thick mantel of ivy ever green, and the great waxy leaves of the Poet’s magnolia fill the window in Emily’s room. They clatter in the lightest breeze and tap the windowpane. The ivy gets a trim every so often, but always outside of the nesting season as all manner of birdlife rears its young within its secret deep folds.
This experience of looking through windows from within, and almost from under the ivy, applies as much today as in Tennyson’s time. Hopefully, the ever-encroaching trees and shrubs beyond will also in time surround the house, much as before.
It calls to mind lines from the poignant and lovely song ‘Under the Ivy’ by an artist altogether of our time, Kate Bush:
Go into the garden
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