Friday, April 24, 2009

Friday flower blogging

Lilacs
24 April 2009

WHEN lilacs last in the door-yard bloom’d,
And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,
I mourn’d—and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

O ever-returning spring! trinity sure to me you bring;
Lilac blooming perennial, and drooping star in the west,
And thought of him I love.

--Walt Whitman, first stanza

Sunset this evening, viewed from next to the lilac bush

This may well not become a regular feature but, at the distance of a year, I realize I had tired of prince blogging. It still accounts for at least a fourth of the page views on this blog as people pursue photos they have found on Google images.

--the BB

6 comments:

David@Montreal said...

Paul
i love the Whitman quote
and may your days be filled with more and more blooms and less of the mourning her refers to.

a question tho: what is 'prince blogging'?

David@Montreal

Paul said...

I was too lazy this morning to do links in a comment so pointed David to the tags offline.

The answer is that in a spoof of Friday cat blogging I began Friday prince blogging, posting photos of male royals each Friday. I stopped when work took me abruptly to New Orleans at the end of last April and I no longer had the leisure to compile the photos.

Paul said...

I might add that while I always think of the opening line of Whitman's poem when I see lilacs, I do not find them at all elegiac. They just look and smell lovely!

There are three small lilac bushes in my front yard also and this year, for the first time, two of them bloomed.

Jane R said...

I love lilacs.

Maybe if you do flower blogging people will show up for that reason. :-)

David, the young gentlemen were quite dishy and for the most part, very classy (which princes often are, but sometimes they are not). It was fun while it lasted. (And yes, they were fully and very nicely clothed.)

susan s. said...

Well, there are only so many of the princes. The trouble is they age, just like we all do. I remember how beautiful the current ruler of Monaco was in his infancy and early years. Alas he has not lived up to the promise.

I think monarchy corrupts them. And of course the few exceptions prove that rule.

susan s. said...

I love your lilacs, btw. They were at least earlier in our history elegiac, made even more so by Whitman's poem about Lincoln.

Being a singer, this is the part that touches me most...

"...
Solitary, the thrush,
The hermit, withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements,
Sings by himself a song.

Song of the bleeding throat!
Death’s outlet song of life—(for well, dear brother, I know
If thou wast not gifted to sing, thou would’st surely die.)"