Ode to the Dandelion

Dandelions are blooming all around town and along the roadsides. Already dainty white puffs of seeds are floating through the air. I welcome these cheery early blossoms to the valley but must confess that I do not really want them in my yard. As Andrew Mason says, “If dandelions were hard to grow, they would be most welcome on any lawn.” But they are not hard to grow. Hal Borland expresses my frustration, “You fight dandelions all weekend, and late Monday afternoon there they are, pert as all get out, in full and gorgeous bloom, pretty as can be, thriving as only dandelions can in the face of adversity.”

None-the-less here is an ode to this beautiful blossom:

To the Dandelion
Dear common flower, that grow’st beside the way,
Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold,
First pledge of blithesome May,
which children pluck, and, full of pride, uphold,
High-hearted buccaneers, o’erjoyed that they
An Eldorado in the grass have found,
Which not the rich earth’s ample round
May match in wealth, thou art more dear to me
Than all the prouder summer blooms may be.

My childhood’s earliest thoughts are linked with thee;
the sight of thee calls back the robin’s song,
Who, from the dark old tree
Beside the door, sang clearly all day long,
And I, secure in childish piety,
Listened as if I heard an angel sing
With news from heaven, which he could bring
Fresh every day to my untainted ears
When birds and flowers and I were happy peers.
— James Russell Lowell