And Columbine

Columbines have always been one of my favorite flowers. I thought they looked like something from a fairytale garden, with their graceful spurs and nodding blooms. The sheer variety of colors and bloom varieties makes them far too easy to plant far too many of. My Mom always used to laugh about my love for them, because I never met a Columbine I didn't want to take home and plant in my garden. Over the years since we bought our house I have planted several different varieties, and they've bred and cross-bred to the point that they're popping up all over the place and I find myself having to dig them out of inconvenient spots throughout my garden. The two pictured here have been the first to bloom so far.

I love reading as much as (if not more than) gardening. Like my columbines, I've amassed a lot of books through my life. They pile up all over the house. There are books in my car and books in the garage and books in the attic. They lurk in closets and desk drawers and on top of the refrigerator.

One of my favorite books is Lud-in-the-Mist, by Hope Mirrlees. It's a charming and slightly unsettling fantasy story published in 1926. In that book, I first came across a version of a very old song from a book published in 1628, and it contains a reference to my beloved Columbine flowers. The story alters the original song a bit to refer to one of the characters, but I tracked down the original online. This song has stuck with me over the years, and every time I'm out tending my garden I find it circling through my head. 

"And can the physician make sick men well?
And can the magician a fortune divine?
Without lily, germander, and sops-in-wine?
With sweet-briar,
And bonfire,
And strawberry wire,
And columbine.

Within and out, in and out round as a ball,
With hither and thither, as straight as a line,
With lily, germander, and sops-in-wine:
With sweet-briar,
And bonfire,
And strawberry wire,
And columbine.

When Saturn did live, there lived no poor,
The king and the beggar with roots did dine,
With lily, germander, and sops-in-wine:
With sweet-briar,
And bonfire,
And strawberry wire,
And columbine."

It's not much of a song, really. Just a handful of lines repeating. But I love it. It suits the magic of the Columbines nodding in my garden, often the first to bloom out of all the other flowers.