The Flowers by Robert Louis Stevenson

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.


Robert Louis Stevenson 1850-1894

Green grow the lilacs, an American Cowboy Song

Green grow the lilacs, all sparkling with dew
I'm lonely, my darling, since parting with you;
But by our next meeting I'll hope to prove true
And change the green lilacs to the Red, White and Blue.

Green grow the lilacs reminding me of
The ones that I brought you with all of my love,
The gates of my country will open for you
And change the green lilacs to the Red, White and Blue.

Green grow the lilacs, Your favorite flow'r,
So sweetly perfuming - a sad parting hour.
Oh send me a message - That you love me too,
Let's change the green lilacs to the Red, White and Blue.

Repeat first verse.

This song was adapted from the Scottish Song below by American Cowboys using the same tune.

Green Grow the Laurels

I once had a sweetheart but now I have none
He's gone and he's left me, to weep and to mourn;
He's gone and he's left me, for others to see
But I'll soon find another, far better than he

cho: Green grows the laurel, soft falls the dew
Sorry was I, love, parting from you
But at our next meeting I hope you'll prove true
And we'll join the green laurel and the violet so blue.

He passes my window both early and late
And the looks he gives at me would me my heart break;
The looks he gives at me a thousand would kill
Though he hates and detests me, I love that lad still.

I wrote him a letter in red rosy lines
He wrote back an answer all twisted and twined
Saying: Keep your love-letters and I will keep mine,
You write to your love and I'll write to mine.

Now I oft'times do wonder why maidens love men
And oft'times I wonder why young men love them
But from my own knowledge I will have you to know
That the men are deceivers wherever they go.

From Folksongs of Britain and Ireland, Kennedy
Collected from Robert Cinnamond, N. Ireland, 1955



GREEN GROWS THE LAUREL

Green grows the laurel and fresh falls the dew
Sorry am I since I parted with you
Sorry am I since I parted with you
And we'll change the green laurel for the bonnets so blue

I can love little or I can love long
I can love a new love when the old love is gone
I only said I loved him to give his heart ease
Now his back is to me, I'll love who I please.

Often have I wondered why women love men
And then I've wondered what makes men love them
This is a mystery, but one thing I know
The men they are deceivers, wherever they go

This version comes from North Carolina

The Lilacs Mother Planted

 
I listened by the doorstep as the evening shadows
fell,
While from the distance floated the faint tinklings
of a bell,
The night hawk circled overhead then dropped
straight down below,
The same as when I first lived there, in childhood,
long ago.
The trees have grown much taller in the yard
where once I played,
And now looked so majestic in their summer robes
arrayed;
And near the walk the lilacs flung their fragrance
to the air
The lilacs that my darling mother planted for us
there.
Ah, yes, what tender memories are forced on us
again,
Who leave our home in boyhood days and then
return grown men;
To seek again the playgrounds which in youth
we loved so well,
The shade beneath the apple tree, the old pump
at the well,
The woodpile, and the cellar door, the dear old
blacksmith shop,
The granary that held the corn with martin box
on top.
But dearer than the playgrounds was the perfume
in the air,
From those dear lilac bushes that my mother
planted there.
Oh, sweet and fragrant lilac, the one she loved so
well,
Thy fragrance brings to memory sad thoughts I
cannot tell;
Sweet lullabies of childhood sung at the evening
rest,
By mother clasping closely the one she loved the
best.
A voice that gently whispered sweet words of
love to me,
A face so kind and gentle, a heart with love so free;
Still yet my heart throbs feel them, still yet I see
them there,
When lilacs that she planted with fragrance fill
the air.

-Ed Blair.

Lilacs in a Window, by Mary Cassatt

Lilacs in a Window, by Mary Cassatt

Lilacs, a poem by Amy Lowell

Lilac Bush by Vincent van Gogh


Lilacs,
False blue,
White
Purple,
Colour 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 pasture-bars to give the cows good milking,
You persuaded the housewife that her dish pan 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 night-time
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 the elm-shaded streets with little shops where they sell kites and marbles,
You are of great parks where everyone 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,
Colour of lilac,
You have forgotten your Eastern origin,
The veiled women with eyes like panthers,
The swollen, aggressive turbans of jewelled 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 the gardens of little children,
You are the 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,
Colour of lilac.
Heart-leaves of lilac all over New England,
Roots of lilac under all the soil of New England,
Lilacs 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.

-Amy Lowell (1874 - 1925)
 "Lilacs" was published in What's O'Clock (1925),
a collection that won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1926, after Amy's death.

Some Lilac History

Here from the gardeners network is some lilac history.  Lilacs in the United States date back to the mid 1750's. They were grown in America's first botanical gardens and were popular in New England. Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew them in their gardens. Lilac bushes can live for hundreds of years, so a bush planted at that time may still be around. Lilacs originated from Europe and Asia, with the majority of natural varieties coming from Asia. In Europe, lilacs came from the Balkans, France and Turkey.


Where is the Lilac Capital of the World? Many areas grow them and many have a wide variety in large numbers. But Rochester, N.Y. undoubtedly is the Lilac Capital of the World. It's love for Lilacs dates back to 1892 when Highland Park horticulturalist John Dunbar planted 20 varieties on the sunny southern slopes of the park. Highland Park in Rochester is the scene of an annual, two week long Lilac Festival ,with over a half a million people attending the event each year. This park has over 500 varieties of lilacs and more than 1200 lilac bushes in the parks' 155 acres.

In addition, many homes and parks in the Rochester area have one or more lilac bushes. If you take a ride along many of the Finger Lakes, you will find thousands of them along the roadside and the sweet smell will come right through your open window.


A Stately Bush: On August 18, 2006, New York State Governor George Pataki proclaimed the Lilac as the State bush.

For more good information follow the link to the Gardener's Network:
http://www.gardenersnet.com/lilac.htm