#WingedWordsWindsday: 2023/05/10 -- May: The Merry Month of Flowers

 

WINGED WORDS WINDSDAY

Compiled & Edited by Rob Chappell (@RHCLambengolmo)

Vol. 2, No. 28: May 10, 2023

 

 

May: The Merry Month of Flowers!

 

Editor’s Note

                With the arrival of the merry month of May, I am reminded of a riddle from my elementary school days: “If March winds bring April showers, and if April showers bring May flowers, then what do May flowers bring?” The answer, of course, was “Pilgrims!” 😊

 

Painting of the Mayflower at sea in 1620, on the way to found Plymouth Colony in present-day Massachusetts. (Image Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)

 

“The Mayflowers”

By John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892)

 

Sad Mayflower! watched by winter stars,

And nursed by winter gales,

With petals of the sleeted spars,

And leaves of frozen sails!

 

What had she in those dreary hours,

Within her ice-rimmed bay,

In common with the wild-wood flowers,

The first sweet smiles of May?

 

Yet, “God be praised!” the Pilgrim said,

Who saw the blossoms peer

Above the brown leaves, dry and dead,

“Behold our Mayflower here!”

 

“God wills it: here our rest shall be,

Our years of wandering o'er;

For us, the Mayflower of the sea

Shall spread her sails no more.”

 

O sacred flowers of faith and hope,

As sweetly now as then

Ye bloom on many a birchen slope,

In many a pine-dark glen.

 

Behind the sea-wall's rugged length,

Unchanged, your leaves unfold,

Like love behind the manly strength

Of the brave hearts of old.

 

So live the fathers in their sons,

Their sturdy faith be ours,

And ours the love that overruns

Its rocky strength with flowers!

 

The Pilgrim's wild and wintry day

Its shadow round us draws;

The Mayflower of his stormy bay,

Our Freedom's struggling cause.

 

But warmer suns erelong shall bring

To life the frozen sod;

And through dead leaves of hope shall spring

Afresh the flowers of God!

 

“May-Flower”

By Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

 

Pink, small, and punctual,

Aromatic, low,

Covert in April,

Candid in May,

Dear to the moss,

Known by the knoll,

Next to the robin

In every human soul.

Bold little beauty,

Bedecked with thee,

Nature forswears

Antiquity.

 

*                                              *                                              *

 

“Did You Ever?”

By Evaleen Stein (1863-1923)

 

Did you ever see a fairy in a rose-leaf coat and cap

Swinging in a cobweb hammock as he napped his noonday nap?

 

Did you ever see one waken very thirsty and drink up

All the honey-dew that glimmered in a golden buttercup?

 

Did you ever see one fly away on rainbow-twinkling wings?

If you did not, why, how comes it that you never see such things?

 

“The Flowers”

By Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

Excerpted from A Child's Garden of Verses (1882)

 

All the names I know from nurse:

Gardener's garters, Shepherd's purse,

Bachelor's buttons, Lady's smock,

And the Lady Hollyhock.

 

Fairy places, fairy things,

Fairy woods where the wild bee wings,

Tiny trees for tiny dames--

These must all be fairy names!

 

Tiny woods below whose boughs

Shady fairies weave a house;

Tiny tree-tops, rose or thyme,

Where the braver fairies climb!

 

Fair are grown-up people's trees,

But the fairest woods are these;

Where, if I were not so tall,

I should live for good and all.

 

“The Flower’s Lesson”

By Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888)

Excerpted from Flower Fables (1855)

 

There grew a fragrant rose-tree where the brook flows,

With two little tender buds, and one full rose;

When the sun went down to his bed in the west,

The little buds leaned on the rose-mother’s breast,

While the bright eyed stars their long watch kept,

And the flowers of the valley in their green cradles slept;

Then silently in odors they communed with each other,

The two little buds on the bosom of their mother.

“O sister,” said the little one, as she gazed at the sky,

“I wish that the Dew Elves, as they wander lightly by,

Would bring me a star; for they never grow dim,

And the Father does not need them to burn round him.

The shining drops of dew the Elves bring each day

And place in my bosom, so soon pass away;

But a star would glitter brightly through the long summer hours,

And I should be fairer than all my sister flowers.

That were better far than the dew-drops that fall

On the high and the low, and come alike to all.

I would be fair and stately, with a bright star to shine

And give a queenly air to this crimson robe of mine.”

And proudly she cried, “These fire-flies shall be

My jewels, since the stars can never come to me.”

Just then a tiny dew-drop that hung o’er the dell

On the breast of the bud like a soft star fell;

But impatiently she flung it away from her leaf,

And it fell on her mother like a tear of grief,

While she folded to her breast, with willful pride,

A glittering fire-fly that hung by her side.

“Heed,” said the mother rose, “daughter mine,

Why shouldst thou seek for beauty not thine?

The Father hath made thee what thou now art;

And what he most loveth is a sweet, pure heart.

Then why dost thou take with such discontent

The loving gift which he to thee hath sent?

For the cool fresh dew will render thee far

More lovely and sweet than the brightest star;

They were made for Heaven, and can never come to shine

Like the fire-fly thou hast in that foolish breast of thine.

O my foolish little bud, do listen to thy mother;

Care only for true beauty, and seek for no other.

There will be grief and trouble in that willful little heart;

Unfold thy leaves, my daughter, and let the fly depart.”

But the proud little bud would have her own will,

And folded the fire-fly more closely still;

Till the struggling insect tore open the vest

Of purple and green, that covered her breast.

When the sun came up, she saw with grief

The blooming of her sister bud leaf by leaf.

While she, once as fair and bright as the rest,

Hung her weary head down on her wounded breast.

Bright grew the sunshine, and the soft summer air

Was filled with the music of flowers singing there;

But faint grew the little bud with thirst and pain,

And longed for the cool dew; but now ’t was in vain.

Then bitterly she wept for her folly and pride,

As drooping she stood by her fair sister’s side.

Then the rose mother leaned the weary little head

On her bosom to rest, and tenderly she said:

“Thou hast learned, my little bud, that, whatever may betide,

Thou canst win thyself no joy by passion or by pride.

The loving Father sends the sunshine and the shower,

That thou mayst become a perfect little flower;—

The sweet dews to feed thee, the soft wind to cheer,

And the earth as a pleasant home, while thou art dwelling here.

Then shouldst thou not be grateful for all this kindly care,

And strive to keep thyself most innocent and fair?

Then seek, my little blossom, to win humility;

Be fair without, be pure within, and thou wilt happy be.

So when the quiet Autumn of thy fragrant life shall come,

Thou mayst pass away, to bloom in the Flower Spirits’ home.”

Then from the mother’s breast, where it still lay hid,

Into the fading bud the dew-drop gently slid;

Stronger grew the little form, and happy tears fell,

As the dew did its silent work, and the bud grew well,

While the gentle rose leaned, with motherly pride,

O’er the fair little ones that bloomed at her side.

 

Night came again, and the fire-flies flew;

But the bud let them pass, and drank of the dew;

While the soft stars shone, from the still summer heaven,

On the happy little flower that had learned the lesson given.

 

“Earth and Air Seemed Filled with Beauty” is the title of the frontispiece from Louisa May Alcott’s Flower Fables. (Image Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons)