Roses

And finally high summer is here as far as I'm concerned. The weather is wonderful, warm and sunny and:

the first roses are flowering and I'm floating from one to the other in the garden (just like a butterfly)

I'm going to share as many as I can with you and also want to share the following poem which is very old (written 600 B.C.) but has the same feeling about roses as I have:

If Jove would give the leafy bowers

A queen for all their world of flowers,

The rose would be the choice of Jove,

And blush the queen of every grove.

Sweetest child of weeping morning,

Gem, the breast of earth adorning,

Eye of flow'rets, glow of lawns,

Bud of beauty, nursed by dawns;

Soft the soul of love it breathes,

Cypria's brow with magic wreathes;

And to Zephyr's wild caresses,

Diffuses all its verdant tresses,

Till glowing with the wanton's play,

It blushes a diviner ray.

(Sappho of Lesbos)