The Crocus

Saturday was such a beautiful day here in our corner, and I discovered something extra special in my garden along the south-west side of our house where the snow has begun to melt.  The fields are still covered in layers of snow and ice, and the driveway is lined with dirty, melting, mushy piles of snow, but tucked up close to the house is a glorious wave of color, a little oasis in the midst of the muddy, slushy mess, a sign that winter is over...my crocuses. 

The crocuses have become one of my favorite flowers...such tender little flowers with iron wills, pushing their delicate noses through the snow into the harsh cold temperatures of the New England spring; unaffected, they open their little faces to the sun and smile at the world around them.  I love this quote from the book I am currently reading, Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim,

"Things came up there and grew and flowered exactly as my gardening books said they should do; and in front of me, in the gay orchard, things that nobody ever troubled about or cultivated or noticed throve joyously beneath the trees, -- daffodils thrusting their spears through the grass, crocuses peeping out inquiringly, snowdrops uncovering their small cold faces when the first shivering spring days came."

The Crocus

by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896)

 Beneath the sunny autumn sky

With gold leaves dropping round,

We sought, my little friend and I,

The consecrated ground,

Where, calm beneath the holy cross,

O'ershadowed by sweet skies,

Sleeps tranquilly that youthful form,

Those blue unclouded eyes.

 

Around the soft, green swelling mound

We scooped the earth away,

And buried deep the crocus-bulbs

Against a coming day.

"These roots are dry, and brown, and sere;

Why plant them here?" he said,

"To leave them, all the winter long,

So desolate and dead."

 

"Dear child, within each sere dead form

There sleeps a living flower,

And angel-like it shall arise

In spring's returning hour."

Ah, deeper down -- cold, dark, and chill --

We buried our heart's flower,

But angel-like shall he arise

In spring's immortal hour.

 

In blue and yellow from its grave

Springs up the crocus fair,

And God shall raise those bright blue eyes,

Those sunny waves of hair.

Not for a fading summer's morn,

Not for a fleeting hour,

But for an endless age of bliss,

Shall rise our heart's dear flower.