Early Spring Blooms
These verses are from one of the earliest poems of Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow( 1807-1882), written when he was still a teenager. He included it and a few others in a section called“ Earlier Poems” in Volume One of the 1857 edition of his Poetical Works. While it lacks his mature style, it reminds us of crisp winter days and shows us a stage in Longfellow’ s own flowering as one of America’ s most admired poets. Longfellow and his family are buried in lot # 580 on Indian Ridge Path.
Woods in Winter When winter winds are piercing chill, And through the hawthorn blows the gale, With solemn feet I tread the hill, That overbrows the lonely vale.
Alas! how changed from the fair scene, When birds sang out their mellow lay, And winds were soft, and woods were green, And the song ceased not with the day!
But still wild music is abroad, Pale, desert woods! within your crowd; And gathering winds, in hoarse accord, Amid the vocal reeds pipe loud.
SNOWDROPS( Galanthus) have very tough tips and push through the frozen ground, springing up like magic when the snow melts. Sometimes they are up by early January. Their bell-like flowers resemble white milk drops hanging from a stiff stem. Look for these on the hillside of Mount Auburn and near the intersection of Fir and Vesper avenues.
Chill airs and wintry winds! my ear Has grown familiar with your song; I hear it in the opening year, I listen, and it cheers me long.
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Spring Has Come
Intra Muros. The sunbeams, lost for half a year,
Slant through my pane their morning rays; For dry northwesters cold and clear, The east blows in its thin blue haze.
And first the snowdrop’ s bells are seen,
Then close against the sheltering wall The tulip’ s horn of dusky green, The peony’ s dark unfolding ball.
The golden-chaliced crocus burns; The long narcissus-blades appear; The cone-beaked hyacinth returns To light her blue-flamed chandelier.
I hear the whispering voice of Spring, The thrush’ s trill, the robin’ s cry,
Like some poor bird with prisoned wing That sits and sings, but longs to fly.
Oh for one spot of living green— One little spot where leaves can grow,—
To love unblamed, to walk unseen, To dream above, to sleep below!
— Oliver Wendell Holmes
GLORY-OF-THE-SNOW( Chinodoxa luciliae) is well-named, appearing to rise from the disappearing winter snows. Its sixpetal lilac-blue flowers are turned upward and appear to reflect the heavens. SIBERIAN SQUILL( Scilla siberica) appears in many places shortly after snowdrops bloom. It is planted under many of the mature European beeches at Mount Auburn. Its bell-like flowers droop downward.
These verses are from a 1858 work of Oliver Wendell Holmes( 1809-1894), one of the hundreds of poems this prolific author created during his long career as physician, scientist, poet, novelist, teacher, essayist and humorist. Holmes is buried in his wife’ s family lot # 2147 on Lime Avenue.
6 | Sweet Auburn