From the chaos of experience, the serenity of a garden, the imagination of a poem. This is a collection "gardens" as subjects in the work of 103 poets, most of whom are well-known.
Professor Hollander (Yale) provides a short elevated Foreword--pressing the case for the poetic essence of gardens, and reciprocally, the gardening of poesy.

The names of the Chapters indicate the organization of the collection by the following subjects:
"PARADISES" - Milton's "Eden", Ovid's "Golden Age", Homer's "Garden of Alcinous", among others.
GARDENS OF LOVE - direct expressions by Chaucer, Spenser, Donne, Dante, Blake, Millay, and others.
GARDENS OF THE MIND - visions of Merrill, the "Doomed Garden" of Octavio Paz, "Time" by Winters, "Myself" by La Mare, "Writing" by Boileau, "No Barren Leaves" by Pomfret, and others.
GARDENS AND SEASONS - From Millay's "Spring", through Morris' "Thunder", to Bridges, Rossetti, and Campana "Fall", and Frost's "Winter Eden", Tennyson's "Song", and Saigyo's "In Winter".
FLOWERS - their fruit, lessons, relations, weeds, and "What the Flowers Said" by Rumi.
GARDENERS - Graves, Van Doren, Stevenson, Shakespeare's "The Gardener's Lesson", Frost "A Girl's Garden", and others.
WORK OF THE GARDEN - Roethke on "Transplanting", Randolph "On Grafting", Cowper "On Pruning" and "Work".
GARDENS OF THE WILD - describing wilds, conservation, and being with Emerson "In my garden".
CITY GARDENS - Martial, Verlaine, Stickney, W C Williams, Moss, Swenson, Hollander [qv] "The Garden", Warren.
PUBLIC GARDENS - Oscar Wilde "Le Jardin des Tuileries", P'i "Lotus Lake", Arnold, Wilbur, Martha Hollander [qv], Rainer Maria Rilke "The Parks".
RUINED GARDENS - Tennyson's "In Memoriam", E A Robinson, Algernon Charles Swinburne "Forsaken...", Melville "Ravaged...", Han-shan "Abandoned...", E B Browning "Deserted...", Thomas Hardy "The Garden Seat".
A GARDEN OF GARDENS - Mervin, Cummings, Gascoigne "The World as Garden", Tennyson, D H Lawrence, MOrris, Pasternak, Pope, Jennings, Ryota. ( )