Lily in our garden: Queen of the flowers

Emily Dickinson mentioned flowers in her poems or letters more than 400 times, the roses appeared most often, but her allusions to lilies are the most loving and sensuous.

Most flowers need to have a “group photo” to look beautiful, not lily; lily stands alone can be beautiful, elegant, sublime or even aloof.  Like a queen!  You can tell I am in the camp of lily in the age-old debate of whether lily or rose is the queen of the flowers.

Seeing the lilies in our garden, I always think about Queen Catherine of Aragon (Henry VIII’s first wife; she was a Spanish princess whose parents commissioned Columbus to discover the new world).

In Act III Scene 1 of Henry VIII, Cardinal Wolsey tried to persuade Queen Catherine to accept the divorce from the king.  We read Queen Catherine said,

Almost no grave allowed me; like the lily,
That once was mistress of the field and flourished,
I’ll hang my head and perish.