Here are my contributions to spring flower poetry:
Ego flos campi et lilium convallium.
Sicut lilium inter spinas sic amica mea inter filias.
Sicut malum inter ligna sic dilectus meus inter filios.
---Canticum Canticorum
[The Beloved] I am the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valleys.
[The Lover] As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters.
[The Beloved] As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons.
-- Song of Solomon 2:1-5
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Comme on voit sur la branche, au mois de mai, la rose
En sa belle jeunesse, en sa première fleur,
Rendre le ciel jaloux de sa vive couleur,
Quand l'aube de ses pleurs au point de jour l'arrose:
La grâce dans sa feuille et l'amour se repose,
Embaumant les jardins et les arbres d'odeur;
Mais, battue ou de pluie ou d'excessive ardeur,
Languissante elle meurt feuille à feuille déclose.
Ainsi en ta première et jeune nouveauté,
Quand la terre et le ciel honoraient ta beauté,
La Parque t'a tuée, et cendre tu reposes.
Pour obsèques reçois mes larmes et mes pleurs,
Ce vase plein de lait, ce panier plein de fleurs,
Afin que vif et mort ton corps ne soit que roses.
--- Pierre de Ronsard
As we see on its branch, in the month of May, the rose
In its fair youth, in its first flow'r,
Make the heavens jealous of its bright hue,
When dawn waters it with her tears at break of day:
Grace and love tucked away in its leaf
Perfume the gardens and the trees with scent;
But, beaten down by rains or blazing heat,
Languishing, it dies, leaf by leaf laid bare.
So too, in thy first youthful freshness,
When the earth and the heav'ns adored your beauty,
Fate has slain you, and ashes now you lie.
For funeralls, receive my tears and sobs,
This vase full of milk, this basket full of roses,
That, alive or dead, your body may be naught but roses.
--- BYB's translation
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Part of a poem of Sir Henry Wotten, quoted by Izaak Walton in The Compleat Angler
Joan takes her neat-rubbed pail, and now
She trips to milk the sand-red cow;
Where, for some sturdy foot-ball swain,
Joan strokes a syllabub or twain.
The fields and gardens were beset
With tulip, crocus, violet;
And now, though late, the modest rose
Did more than half a blush disclose.
Thus all looks gay and full of cheer,
To welcome the new-liveried year.
