[Alex Pepple]

This is a competently written sonnet with delightful sonics, producing an aura bright as the cornucopia of flowers referenced. The only drawback is the amount of specialist knowledge about flowers referenced it takes to fully understand the poem, especially the pivotal soldier roses. Thus, limiting the number of flowers for a better focus may not be a bad thing. And, great explication, Cathy!

Cheers,
...Alex

[Rose Kelleher]

But, finely-written as it is, the garden scene can't help being a let-down after the invocation of the haunting melody and sadness of the song. You just can't pull off a mood-switch from pipers playing over 10,000 dead boyfriends, husbands, and fathers on the moors of Flodden to horticulture.

There's some precedent for it.

Where Have All the Flowers Gone

In Flanders Fields

"Then they stood there, in that flowered meadow
by the Scamander, an immense array,
as numerous as leaves and flowers in springtime."

[Susan McLean]

For me, the title presents the greatest difficulty because I don't catch the allusion and, without it, "wede" doesn't convey much. I didn't have any trouble with "soldier roses" because I assumed it meant the last outposts of roses, soldiering on into the bad weather. If something else was intended, I didn't catch it. I did not assume any other military references in the poem, because for me the flowers seemed to represent the seasons of life--youth, prime, late middle age, and a suggestion that old age is coming soon. I did balk a bit at the association of marigolds and poppies with "scents and ripeness." Their colors are bright, but their scents are unpleasant or nonexistent (at least, that is how they seem to me). Though the progression of seasons becomes relatively predictable, I like the ending very much.

Susan

[R. Nemo Hill]

I'm puzzled that anyone would think the flower lore so esoteric here. Oh sure, there is a Language of Flowers (Victorian and otherwise) that can be quite arcanely detailed, but one needn't delve that deeply into such matters to have a visceral reaction to the bouquets here. Even if one is so divorced from the garden as not to know which flowers bloom in which season the poem comes right out and tells you. Have Google & Wiki killed poetic imagination & association entirely? Surely that language of Flowers at its most refined and complex begins in natural archetype and is accessible to all.

As for the soldier rose reference, the blood red of the classic rose seems to provide an association, even without a host of literary illusions. Wound leaps pretty quickly to my imagination when the words soldier and rose touch.

As for precedents, as Rose points out, there are many. For instance the very famous French poem by Louis Aragon, The Lilacs And The Roses in which springtime's lilacs are the flowers thrown at the soldiers marching off in hope to war, whereas roses are what greet them in retreat. As translated by Louis MacNeice, it ends thus:

Bouquets of the first day, lilacs, Flanders lilacs,
Soft cheeks of shadow rouged by death--and you,
Bouquets of the retreat, delicate roses, tinted
Like far off conflagrations: roses of Anjou.

The sonnet itself is thus classic. Perhaps too much so for my taste, but it certainly maintains its own stately progress without striking a false note. Like the Aragon poem which struck an enduring chord with the French public at the time it was written, I can feel how strongly this one, in a certain context, could connect with a collective soul. The Aragon is quite site specific with its proper nouns--more so than this, which as Susan comments need not be tied to anything more particular than everyman's progression from youth to death. What it thus gains in philosophical detachment, it might lose in emotional immediacy. Although the one truly arcane reference, the wede, may tip the scale back for those who recognize it instantly. In the end, the sonnet feels firmly afloat in the grand tradition to which it quietly contributes.

Nemo

[Lance Levens]

As Susan points out, this appears to be a "seasons of life" poem, and those may be predictable; but instead of tedium--which Susan implies--I sense closure and completion. I'm flower-challenged, but context
reveals sufficient necessities.

[FOsen]

I got the ubi sunt but not the military references, reading this as Susan did. I'm probably on a par with Michael and Lance where flowers are concerned, but I found this moving and well crafted. My problem is the title, which is obviously very evocative for others. Admittedly, I may not be the ideal reader, but "Wede Away" sounds like something made by Ortho.

Frank

[John Beaton]

There are plenty of successful poems and songs that liken dying soldiers to wilting flowers, and this could be one of them. But the title is very specific to one particular song, the one in the YouTube link above. Once the words and sounds of that song leap to mind, I don't think you can switch easily to hyacinths and wisterias.

It's a peculiar title problem. If you don't get the allusion, the title does nothing. If you do, I think it overpowers the poem.

John

[Jan Iwaszkiewicz]

I have read the comments.

I did not find this sonnet too hard and only had to look up 'wede' and that I felt could easily be recast to better effect. To me, the title, rather than overpower is somewhat of a non sequitur I cannot stretch the wistful beauty of this to the horrors of that butchery.

Beautifully crafted.

[Mary Meriam]

This is a sonnet of sweet, poignant fragrances. I love the ellisions.. and pronunciation variants, as Michael wrote.

[Janet Kenny]

I was interested in Jan's comment about the difficulty of associating the images with the butchering that lies behind the poem. That's my problem too. I realise that that is the precise point of the poem.

Still it is hard to accept this gentle mourning for what need not have happened.

The beauty of the poem is undeniable. The symbols are powerful and the images and sounds are superb.

If it makes me angry that is my problem.
Janet