Gardener Bloggers’ Muse Day – June 2011

The month of June, per Edith Holden’s “Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady” …

In the old Latin calendar June was the fourth month. Ovid states that this month received it’s name in honour of Juno, other writers connect the term with the consulate of Junius Brutus. Probably however it has an agricultural reference, and originally denoted the month in which crops grow to ripeness. The Anglo Saxons called it ‘the dry month’, also ‘midsummer month’ and in contradistinction to July ‘the earlier mild month.’ The summer solstice occurs in June.

And from the collection of poetry Ms. Holden has been kind enough to share with us …

For the Rose, ho the Rose! is the eye of the flowers,
Is the blush of the meadows that feel themselves fair,
Is the lightning of beauty that strikes thro’ the bowers,
On pale lovers who sit in the glow unaware.
Ho, the Rose breathes of love! Ho, the Rose lifts the cup
To the red lips of Cypris invoked for a guest;
Ho! the Rose, having curled it’s sweet leaves for the world,
As they laugh to the wind, as it laughs from the west!

E.B.B Trans from Suppho

Whereforth cometh the inspiration to wax poetic? Garden Bloggers’ Muse Day, where Carolyn Choi of Sweet Home and Garden Chicago,  invites bloggers to share our favorite poems, songs, verses and quotes about gardening on the first of the month.