 |
| 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.
.
But I send you a cream-white rosebudWith 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?"