From “The Last Chrysanthemum” by Thomas Hardy in The RHS Book of Flower Poetry and Prose by the Royal Horticultural Society:
Why should this flower delay so long
To show its tremulous plumes?
Now is the time of plaintive robin-song,
When flowers are in their tombs.
Through the slow summer, when the sun
Called to each frond and whorl
That all he could for flowers was being done,
Why did it not uncurl?
It must have felt that fervid call
Although it took no heed,
Walking but now, when leaves like corpses fall,
And saps all retrocede.
Too late its beauty, lonely thing,
The season’s shine is spent,
Nothing remains for it but shivering
In tempests turbulent.
Had it a reason for delay,
Dreaming in witlessness
That for a bloom so delicately gay
Winter would stay its stress?
I talk as if the thing were born
With sense to work its mind;
Yet it is but one mask of many worn
By the Great Face behind.
Hello!
This is the last of the midwinter mum-posts!
Well, not quite… it’s been raining a lot (really a lot!) lately so I’ve been indoors poking at Lightroom and slinging some of the flowers onto black backgrounds, as one does sometimes. So this is the last of the original mum photos, with those blackground variations in post-processing and to be revealed shortly.
The previous posts in this series are Midwinter Mums (1 of 6), Midwinter Mums (2 of 6), Midwinter Mums (3 of 6), Midwinter Mums (4 of 6), and Midwinter Mums (5 of 6).
Thanks for taking a look!
Such cheerful flowers and such a dark poem, a couple stages past melancholy I’d say. But I’m glad you posted it, interesting.
Is it? How fascinating! I had a completely different kind of interpretation… funny how poetry strikes people differently.
🙂
Beautiful images, Dale – and so cheerful this time of year!
Thank you very much — and yes they are! It was fun to work with all these colors during a rainy, cold, and gray January!
Thanks for the comment!