I’m working diligently on a very big project– so this little spot is being slightly neglected. I can promise that it will be worth it, though. For now, it’s under wraps until I can announce it, but for the time being, I leave you with this. It’s hard to believe that it was once warm enough in CT to make my flowers bloom. But here’s a little proof from our sun room back in May. ‘Hope it gives you a little slice of hope and anticipation, while making you smile.
(This trunk was Paul’s great-grandfather’s (or great-great,I think? Not sure.) He brought it over from Europe when he came to the States. And I love it.)
And though it’s very long- (this is just a small piece of the whole poem), it’s worth a read. I leave you with this writing from Walt Whitman, penned in honor of Abraham Lincoln’s untimely passing:
| 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, | 5 |
| And thought of him I love. | |
O powerful, western, fallen star! |
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| O shades of night! O moody, tearful night! | |
| O great star disappear’d! O the black murk that hides the star! | |
| O cruel hands that hold me powerless! O helpless soul of me! | 10 |
| O harsh surrounding cloud, that will not free my soul! | |
In the door-yard fronting an old farm-house, near the white-wash’d palings, |
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| Stands the lilac bush, tall-growing, with heart-shaped leaves of rich green, | |
| With many a pointed blossom, rising, delicate, with the perfume strong I love, | |
| With every leaf a miracle……and from this bush in the door-yard, | 15 |
| With delicate-color’d blossoms, and heart-shaped leaves of rich green, | |
| A sprig, with its flower, I break. | |
In the swamp, in secluded recesses, |
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| A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song. | |
| Solitary, the thrush, | 20 |
| The hermit, withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements, | |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.) | 25 |
Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities, |
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| Amid lanes, and through old woods, (where lately the violets peep’d from the ground, spotting the gray debris;) | |
| Amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes—passing the endless grass; | |
| Passing the yellow-spear’d wheat, every grain from its shroud in the dark-brown fields uprising; | |
| Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in the orchards; | 30 |
| Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave, | |
| Night and day journeys a coffin. | |
Coffin that passes through lanes and streets, |
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| Through day and night, with the great cloud darkening the land, | |
| With the pomp of the inloop’d flags, with the cities draped in black, | 35 |
| With the show of the States themselves, as of crape-veil’d women, standing, | |
| With processions long and winding, and the flambeaus of the night, | |
| With the countless torches lit—with the silent sea of faces, and the unbared heads, | |
| With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the sombre faces, | |
| With dirges through the night, with the thousand voices rising strong and solemn; | 40 |
| With all the mournful voices of the dirges, pour’d around the coffin, | |
| The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs—Where amid these you journey, | |
| With the tolling, tolling bells’ perpetual clang; | |
| Here! coffin that slowly passes, | |
| I give you my sprig of lilac. | 45 |
