Lilacs

 
Lilacs
by Amy Lowell (1874-1925)

Lilacs,

False blue,

White,

Purple,

Color of lilac,

Your great puffs of flowers

Are everywhere in this my New England.   

Among your heart-shaped leaves

Orange orioles hop like music-box birds and sing   

Their little weak soft songs;

In the crooks of your branches

The bright eyes of song sparrows sitting on spotted eggs   

Peer restlessly through the light and shadow   

Of all Springs.

Lilacs in dooryards

Holding quiet conversations with an early moon;   

Lilacs watching a deserted house

Settling sideways into the grass of an old road;

Lilacs, wind-beaten, staggering under a lopsided shock of bloom

Above a cellar dug into a hill.

You are everywhere.

You were everywhere.

You tapped the window when the preacher preached his sermon,

And ran along the road beside the boy going to school.

You stood by the pasture-bars to give the cows good milking,   

You persuaded the housewife that her dishpan was of silver.   

And her husband an image of pure gold.   

You flaunted the fragrance of your blossoms   

Through the wide doors of Custom Houses—

You, and sandal-wood, and tea,

Charging the noses of quill-driving clerks   

When a ship was in from China.

You called to them: “Goose-quill men, goose-quill men,   

May is a month for flitting.”

Until they writhed on their high stools

And wrote poetry on their letter-sheets behind the propped-up ledgers.

Paradoxical New England clerks,

Writing inventories in ledgers, reading the “Song of Solomon” at night,

So many verses before bed-time,

Because it was the Bible.

The dead fed you

Amid the slant stones of graveyards.

Pale ghosts who planted you

Came in the nighttime

And let their thin hair blow through your clustered stems.   

You are of the green sea,

And of the stone hills which reach a long distance.

You are of elm-shaded streets with little shops where they sell kites and marbles,

You are of great parks where every one walks and nobody is at home.

You cover the blind sides of greenhouses

And lean over the top to say a hurry-word through the glass   

To your friends, the grapes, inside.

 

Lilacs,

False blue,

White,

Purple,

Color of lilac,

You have forgotten your Eastern origin,   

The veiled women with eyes like panthers,

The swollen, aggressive turbans of jeweled pashas.

Now you are a very decent flower,   

A reticent flower,

A curiously clear-cut, candid flower,   

Standing beside clean doorways,

Friendly to a house-cat and a pair of spectacles,   

Making poetry out of a bit of moonlight   

And a hundred or two sharp blossoms.

Maine knows you,

Has for years and years;

New Hampshire knows you,

And Massachusetts

And Vermont.

Cape Cod starts you along the beaches to Rhode Island;   

Connecticut takes you from a river to the sea.   

You are brighter than apples,

Sweeter than tulips,

You are the great flood of our souls

Bursting above the leaf-shapes of our hearts,   

You are the smell of all Summers,

The love of wives and children,

The recollection of gardens of little children,   

You are State Houses and Charters

And the familiar treading of the foot to and fro on a road it knows.

May is lilac here in New England,

May is a thrush singing “Sun up!” on a tip-top ash tree,   

May is white clouds behind pine-trees   

Puffed out and marching upon a blue sky.   

May is a green as no other,

May is much sun through small leaves,   

May is soft earth,

And apple-blossoms,

And windows open to a South Wind.   

May is full light wind of lilac

From Canada to Narragansett Bay.

 

Lilacs,

False blue,

White,

Purple,

Color of lilac.

Heart-leaves of lilac all over New England,   

Roots of lilac under all the soil of New England,   

Lilac in me because I am New England,

Because my roots are in it,

Because my leaves are of it,

Because my flowers are for it,   

Because it is my country

And I speak to it of itself

And sing of it with my own voice   

Since certainly it is mine.

 

The letter opener called Lilac Eyes pictured above with a handcrafted handle of lampwork glass beads accented with lilac nodes can be found at the Beadshaper web site.

 

Christina Rossi's Poem to her Mother

To My Mother
written by Christina Rossi in 1842 when she was 11 years old
(it was actually written for her mother's birthday)

To-day’s your natal day,
Sweet flowers I bring;
Mother, accept, I pray,
My offering.

And may you happy live,
And long us bless;
Receiving as you give
Great happiness.

Mother's Day is coming up on Sunday, May 11, 2014. Rose is offering a sale at 30% off on her web site at BEADSHAPER

Mother's Day

To My Mother
by Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 1849)

Because I feel that, in the Heavens above,
The angels, whispering to one another,
Can find, among their burning terms of love,
None so devotional as that of “Mother,”
Therefore by that dear name I long have called you—
You who are more than mother unto me,
And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you,
In setting my Virginia’s spirit free.
My mother—my own mother, who died early,
Was but the mother of myself; but you
Are mother to the one I loved so dearly,
And thus are dearer than the mother I knew
By that infinity with which my wife
Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life.      

Mother's Day is coming up on Sunday, May 11, 2014. Rose is offering a sale at 30% off on her web site at BEADSHAPER



  

A Red, Red Rose

 

A Red, Red Rose

by Robert Burns (1759-1796)

 

O my luve's like a red, red rose.

That's newly sprung in June;

O my luve's like a melodie

That's sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

So deep in luve am I;

And I will love thee still, my Dear,

Till a'the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my Dear,

And the rocks melt wi' the sun:

I will luve thee still, my Dear,

While the sands o'life shall run.

And fare thee weel my only Luve!

And fare thee weel a while!

And I will come again, my Luve,

Tho' it were ten thousand mile!

 

The heart shaped red lampwork glass bead pictured above was handcrafted by Rose, the Beadshaper. You can see more of Rose's work at 

Beadshaper and Metal Jewelry Shaper.
If you would like to be informed of Rose's new jewelry pieces, you can join her E-mail List.

 

Bridal Song

Bridal Song
by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

ROSES, their sharp spines being gone,
Not royal in their smells alone,
   But in their hue;
Maiden pinks, of odour faint,
Daisies smell-less, yet most quaint,
   And sweet thyme true;

Primrose, firstborn child of Ver;
Merry springtime's harbinger,
   With her bells dim;
Oxlips in their cradles growing,
Marigolds on death-beds blowing,
   Larks'-heels trim;

All dear Nature's children sweet
Lie 'fore bride and bridegroom's feet,
   Blessing their sense!
Not an angel of the air,
Bird melodious or bird fair,
   Be absent hence!

The crow, the slanderous cuckoo, nor
The boding raven, nor chough hoar,
   Nor chattering pye,
May on our bride-house perch or sing,
Or with them any discord bring,
   But from it fly!

The handcrafted Viking Knit copper bracelet pictured above and other lovely bracelets can be seen at Beadshaper and Metal Jewelry Shaper.
If you would like to be informed of Rose's new jewelry pieces, you can join her E-mail List.

Song of Secret Love Pendant

Song of Secret Love
by John Clare (1793-1864)

I hid my love when young while I
Couldn't bear the buzzing of a fly
I hid my love to my despite
Till I could not bear to look at light
I dare not gaze upon her face
But left her memory in each place
Where ere I saw a wild flower lie
I kissed and bade my love goodbye

I met her in the greenest dells
Where dew drops pearl the wood bluebells
The lost breeze kissed her bright blue eye
The bee kissed and went singing by
A sunbeam found a passage there
A gold chain round her neck so fair
As secret as the wild bee's song
She lay there all the summer long

I hid my love in field and town
Till e'en the breeze would knock me down
The bees seemed singing ballads l'er
The fly's buss turned a Lion's roar
And even silence found a tongue
To haunt me all the summer long
The riddle nature could not prove
Was nothing else but secret love

You can find the romantic agate pendant hand crafted by Rose shown above and named for this poem at Metal Jewelry Shaper.

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Love

Love by Robert  Browning (1812-1889)

So, the year's done with
( Love me forever! )
All March begun with,
April's endeavour;

May-wreaths that bound me
June needs must sever;
Now snows fall round me,
Quenching June's fever...

( Love me forever! )

The above brass cuff bracelet adorned with an embossed and inked blue silver foil is named after this poem and can be found in the Metal Jewelry Shaper web site.

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