Gentiana asclepiadea & Rosa 'Winchester Cathedral' 11 August 2022

“The gentian is a greedy flower,” Emily Dickinson wrote to a friend in the autumn of 1859, “and overtakes us all. Indeed, this world is short, and I wish, until I tremble, to touch the ones I love before the hills are red—are gray—are white—are 'born again'!”

Today I scanned a white rose with my gentian. How was I to know that Emily Dickinson had a couple of opinions on the gentian? And I wonder if my nephew Georgito O’Reilly in Buenos Aires might have a poet in the family? His name is John Boyle O'Reilly, and he wrote about a white rose that breathes of love.

I adore combining my photographs, and in this case a scanograph, with poems by my favourite poets (and this new to me Irish one) and writers like Jorge Luís Borges

John Boyle O'Reilly (1844-1890)

The red rose whispers of passion,

And the white rose breathes of love;

O the red rose is a falcon,

And the white rose is a dove.

.

With a flush on its petal tips;

For the love that is purest and sweetest

Has a kiss of desire on the lips.

Nobody knows this little Rose by Emily Dickinson

Nobody knows this little Rose --

It might a pilgrim be

Did I not take it from the ways

And lift it up to thee.

Only a Bee will miss it --

Only a Butterfly,

Hastening from far journey --

On its breast to lie --

Only a Bird will wonder --

Only a Breeze will sigh --

Ah Little Rose -- how easy

For such as thee to die!

Fringed Gentian by Emily Dickinson

God made a little gentian;

It tried to be a rose

And failed, and all the summer laughed.

But just before the snows

There came a purple creature

That ravished all the hill;

And summer hid her forehead,

And mockery was still.

The frosts were her condition;

The Tyrian would not come

Until the North evoked it.

"Creator! shall I bloom?"