Iris Are Not for Children

Daniel Whitehead HickyContemplative

Iris are not for children laughing, playing, Nor jonquils with their cups of yellow fire. These colors belong to April and the old Whose veins no longer blossom with desire, Whose years are measured out like raindrops dripping Slower and slower from an April briar.

Leave summer roses to the children’s fingers, The scent of lilies through the August night; They are concerned with these far more than April For summer is the season of delight When meadows ripen and a bluebird’s pattern Shadows a sea of daisies hot and white.

Iris are not for children, nor the jonquils. On any day in spring you may see the old Clasping at these first flowers as though they held The last fragment of April they shall hold, And in their eyes, somehow, a dream that takes them Across the street and through the wind and cold.

Daniel Whitehead Hicky

SourceLicence:Public domain (US, unrenewed)

Mood:: Contemplative
Topics:: spring, summer, age, iris

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Summary

Hicky pairs flowers with ages of life. Summer roses, lilies and daisies belong to children, who live in a season of ripeness and heat. Irises and jonquils, the early flowers of April, belong instead to the old, whose "veins no longer blossom with desire." The speaker doesn't say this with bitterness. The tone is gentle, almost tender, as if explaining something obvious that only a careful observer would notice.

The images carry the feeling. Time for the old is "measured out like raindrops dripping / Slower and slower from an April briar," a picture of years running thin but still shining. In the last stanza the poem turns to what the speaker has actually seen: old people on a spring day, "clasping" at the first flowers as though each bloom might be their last bit of April. The mood is quiet and wistful, a little sad but full of respect. These aging figures seem to be looking through the flowers toward some remembered dream.

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