I'd Rather Have Roses On My Table . . .

than diamonds on my neck. ~Emma Goldman

The First Day of Spring, I bring you flowers (for the last time) . . . and a lovely little poem by Robert Louis Stevenson from A Child's Garden of Verses; a particular favorite from my own childhood.

THE

FLOWERS

All the names I know from nurse:

Gardener's garters, Shepherd's purse,

Bachelor's buttons, Lady's smock,

And the Lady Hollyhock.

Fairy places, fairy things,

Fairy woods where the wild bee wings,

Tiny trees for tiny dames--

These must all be fairy names!

Tiny woods below whose boughs

Shady fairies weave a house;

Tiny tree-tops, rose or thyme,

Where the braver fairies climb!

Fair are grown-up people's trees,

But the fairest woods are these;

Where, if I were not so tall,

I should live for good and all