Mary, Mary, How Does Your Garden Grow?

Ever wonder what the purpose of those 'pretty maids all in a row' might be?

Mary, Mary, quite contrary 

How does your garden grow? 

With silver bells and cockleshells 

And pretty maids all in a row.

-- By Mother Goose

Mary, Mary, How Does Your Garden Grow?

Cobblestone paths ‘tween bowered vines…

Scents of jasmine and hyacinths…

Fragrant blooms of rose that climbs,

Creating those fairytale depths.

Birdsong lilting… just to entrance

‘Pon wing-ed flights of fancy trill.

Colorful feathered fairy dance

Drawing us to share the idyll. 

Mary, Mary, timid belle,

Delicately tends this garden

Of silver bells and cockle shell…

‘Pon shadowed paths inviting us down…

Beckoning now, she calls to you

To share her shadowed fears with her

That she might not walk alone through.

Join her there, against fear aver.

Many a pretty maid walks there

To bear her company awhile.

They step into her garden fair

And revel through each aisle.

Those pretty maids, all in a row,

Tramp into the garden smiling.

They dance and frolic, safe they trow,

In th’error of their beguiling.

In that garden smiling went well

Pretty maids someone should miss.

But none came out again to tell

The fate of idyllic promise.

Now… Mary, Mary, who can say

The reason for your timid tread,

On those oh so enticing pathways

Through this sylvan fairy flow'rbed?

Mary, Mary, why so wary

Walking your sunlit garden path

Where such flowers lovely tarry

And birds singing sweetly thou hath?

What darkness bides there in that glen?

If innocence is doomed… who’ll know?

Tell me Mary, Mary, what ken…

Tell us… How does your garden grow?

My deepest thanks to David Lewis Paget, Tate Morgan, and Rick Peutter for lending their guidance and tutelage to this composition.

by D. Denise Dianaty

Author's Note

Reviews

[barleygirl]

This is so well written, I'm stunned into silence for a moment (it won't last long)! I don't remember this nursery rhyme, but I don't want to relate your poem to a nursery rhyme . . . I want to savor your ongoing intrigue, thru-out, on its own merits. I love how you begin with a provocative question about the maids & your poem doesn't clear this up for me. I am left feeling these maids are a positive force, maybe angels or maybe Mary's own inner life force. Whatever is haunting her out in that flowerbed still remains a mystery & I love it! I love the subtlety of suggesting something & letting the reader's imagination run with it! (((HUGS))) Fondly, Margie

[MomzillaNC]

Thanks. This one was inspired by the Mother Goose rhyme, "Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary"

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row.

[Crimson_Woad]

This work never ceases to amaze me, nice work

[MomzillaNC]

Thank you very much.

[MomzillaNC]

I made some edits and finally have this one finished.

[Pryde Foltz]

In that garden smiling went well
Pretty maids someone should miss.
But none came out again to tell
The fate of th’idyllic promise.

I have yet to read the rhyming version but this piece is sublime:)

[MomzillaNC]

Thanks, Pryde. "Sublime" is one of my favorite words! This is the rhyming version. The other is a strictly metered, but not deliberately rhyming.

[MomzillaNC]

I made some edits and finally have this one finished.

[Pryde Foltz]

Very nice ….

[MomzillaNC]

Thank you.

[R Smith]

I'm getting a distinctly dark feeling here, Mary, Mary has donned the cape of a modern day Jack the Ripper as one pretty maid after another tripped lightly into her garden of death never to be seen again, the rhyming is beautiful and the sense of an old fashioned Victorian style work is expertly presented, an elaborate work of art, now for the next one!

[MomzillaNC]

Thank you. Gee, you seem convinced the villain in Mary. I've been waffling between her being the villain or a captive victim forced to lure in the maids for slaughter.

[R Smith]

I never even considered another villain, she's clearly nuts, I rest my case m'lady :)

[MomzillaNC]

I made some edits and finally have this one finished. As for who the villain is, well, as in real life - so in art. It all comes down to perception.

[R Smith]

yes that is the one, its perfect now, i confess to being slightly sad that the knife wielding maniac Mary seems to have receded somewhat, (i quite liked her) but this version has all the rhyme and beauty without the creeping horror and is very enjoyable and as you say its all down to the reader now, for me no longer a murderer on the loose but a tale of an entrancing garden where the pretty maids are so beguiled that they have no wish to return back to the world, they have found their peace and bliss in that leafy home :)

[MomzillaNC]

Thank you. Okay, I can see that perspective too. :D

[realmwriter]

I think this full rhyming version is a bit more dark than the other. The rhymes work well through the whole piece, though I have never been a fan of rhyming a singular word with a plural word, just doesn't work for me. I would rather rearrange the entire line to have in rhyme in either singular or plural but not both. That's just my opinion though. I really like the piece as a whole. And the darker tone it takes on through rhyme is genius

[MomzillaNC]

Thank you. I do agree about matching singular terms to plurals. I just couldn't come to grips for a way to do that in that instance.

[realmwriter]

Hope you didn't think I was ragging you, I'm not. Suggestions as follows:

"And revel among flowered aisles" And revel amidst a flowered aisle.
"On those enticing pathways" On this enticing pathway. Only because it is impossible to tread them all at once.

[MomzillaNC]

See, that works. Sometimes the answer is so simple you can't understand how you might have missed it.

[MomzillaNC]

I've made your suggested corrections. Thanks for your help.

[realmwriter]

You are very welcome. Sometimes it just takes an outside, removed perspective is all. You get so wrapped up in something that you can't see it from an objective perspective. Glad I could help.

[Harmony]

And if I thought the last one was lyrical, it had nothing on this one! It initially creates an atmosphere of such perfect romantic idyll, even though I already knew the subject matter this time, I couldn't help being shocked by the sudden reversal of tone all over again. The whole atmosphere is really quite nerve-racking, even more so now that I knew from the beginning where all the natural beauty and charm was headed!

Just one question though. What do you mean by 'In the error of their beguiling'? The error is theirs, but the beguiling is not. That's Mary's. But the sequence of the words makes it seem like the opposite. I know this is nit-picking, but I just felt like that line sounded a teeny bit awkward, in an otherwise perfectly metrical poem.

[MomzillaNC]

If you'll think about times when you've been taken in by someone or some event, you will likely have to admit that it was because you didn't question or examine the situation adequately at the outset. So, you were beguiled by the event or the person because of your own choices.

[Rene Salinas]

As I already reviewed this writing and by now read it a few times I still get the same feling everytime. As an inspiring, full or youthfull enthusiasm, vibrant, willing to make you want to stop and discover something that you hadn't before due to material mentality so to speak. The added rhyme which in my view has helped the rhythm structure offering consonnace has added even more meaning to my words. Granted as it is a take from a well known wrting I see now that the added questioning has brough a certain doubt , intrigue and enigma if one wants but it re- enforces my take by making you want to find that which is not given by the writing.

Rhyming through enlivening.

Thankyou

[MomzillaNC]

Thank you. I think I like the rhyming better as well, mainly because it's more in keeping with the character of the original nursery rhyme.

[Dhaye]

This is nice and cool! I like the rhythm and concept.
Brilliant.

[MomzillaNC]

Thank you. Did you read the non-rhyming version? Have you a preference?

[Dhaye]

I did. They are both nice but I like this one.
You're welcome.

[MomzillaNC]

Thanks, again.