A man is grieving someone he has lost, and his thoughts at first only sadden him. Then he notices sunlight falling on celandines, and suddenly she seems to rise up like a flame—no longer a shadowy memory but a living presence. He remembers how she always found these flowers before anyone else in late winter, her nature as bright and early as theirs. For one swift, vivid moment she is with him again, laughing and bending to the blossoms just as she used to, her hair brushing the moss. He shares that happiness, all the old Februarys returning. But the spell breaks when he plucks a flower and smells its juice. The real, physical scent jolts him back: she is gone, vanished like a half-remembered air. The poem carries you from sorrow into a fleeting, sunlit reunion and then back to quiet loss, with the celandine holding both the joy of memory and the sting of absence.
Celandine — Summary
THINKING of her had saddened me at first, Until I saw the sun on the celandines lie Redoubled, and she stood up like a flame, A living thing, not what before I nursed, The shadow I was growing to love almost, The phantom, not the creature with bright eye That I had thought never to see, once lost.
She found the celandines of February Always before us all. Her nature and name Were like those flowers, and now immediately For a short swift eternity back she came, Beautiful, happy, simply as when she wore Her brightest bloom among the winter hues Of all the world; and I was happy too, Seeing the blossoms and the maiden who Had seen them with me Februarys before, Bending to them as in and out she trod And laughed, with locks sweeping the mossy sod.
But this was a dream: the flowers were not true, Until I stooped to pluck from the grass there One of five petals and I smelt the juice Which made me sigh, remembering she was no more, Gone like a never perfectly recalled air.