45+ Best Poems About Lilies: Gentle Beauty of April

People do not know how but every April, their hearts won’t feel completed if there aren’t any Easter lilies on the street corner. And because everyone is familiar with the purely white color, their hearts are wistful about the color of Easter lilies every April.

Lilies with pure white color and fresh and gentle beauty make people feel incredibly restless. Blooming Easter lilies signalize a coming summer, bringing fresh feelings. And when April comes with full of nostalgia and love through the pristine white of Easter lilies… have become an endless source of inspiration for poets in the world.

Lilies are also known in Vietnam as bach hop, lily, hue tay (in Vietnam). And each name has a different symbol: the bach hop is gentle and simple, the lily symbolizes Hera – an ancient Greek goddess, and the hue tay symbolizes chastity and virtue. In addition, the colors of diverse flowers also have many different meanings: red lilies symbolize elation, pride, shyness, orange lilies express hatred, indignation, white lilies represents virginity, purity…

With the diverse within meanings in colors and names, Easter lilies are an inspiration to many poets in the world. Each poet senses the Easter lilies through their different beauties. Each person has their own persepctives but all of them can say partly “ten to ten” about Easter lilies because they all want to emphasize the pure beauty, combining their poetric and artistic soul. Right below are the best poems about lilies by many poets, hope you will enjoy.

1, Among The Lilies by Susan Coolidge

She stood among the lilies
In sunset’s brightest ray,
Among the tall June lilies,
As stately fair as they;
And I, a boyish lover then,
Looked once, and, lingering, looked again,
And life began that day.

She sat among the lilies,
My sweet, all lily-pale;
The summer lilies listened,
I whispered low my tale.
O golden anthers, breathing balm,
O hush of peace, O twilight calm,
Did you or I prevail?

She lies among the lily-snows,
Beneath the wintry sky;
All round her and about her
The buried lilies lie.
They will awake at touch of Spring,
And she, my fair and flower-like thing,
In spring-time–by and by.

2, Peace Lilies by Cathy Smith Bowers

I collect them now, it seems. Like
sea-shells or old
thimbles. One for
Father. One for

Mother. Two for my sweet brothers.
Odd how little
they require of
me. Unlike the

ones they were sent in memory
of. No sudden
shrilling of the
phone. No harried

midnight flights. Only a little
water now and
then. Scant food and
light. See how I’ve

brought them all together here in
this shaded space
beyond the stairs.
Even when they

thirst, they summon me with nothing
more than a soft,
indifferent furl-
ing of their leaves.

3, Red Lilies by Richard Speakes

We tame with explanations any red, provide
meanings into which we dive, the human

foxhole where the mind finds protection.
It’s fabulous out there, and one clump

of red lilies beside the house could be
the bullet that rips through the body of

all those connotations, our symbols,
the stories that make sense of our world.

Red Riding Hood and Christ’s wounds, mother’s
blood, and the color the sun must be as one’s death

gives sunset its purpose, its passion at closure.
And then, rising, the moon punctuates the sentence

one’s life made, its last word that somehow rhymes
with all the words preceding, love and work

and sex. One’s death is by nature that moment,
all the meanings folded into the bundle

one carries, tied to a stick of bone,
as one goes forth into eternity.

That exquisite nonsense is the world
the mind makes from the world it didn’t,

with words that are themselves blossoms
of the invisible, the world as we see it.

4, Day Lilies by L. S. Asekoff

As the polestar pales to morning
you recognize the first white note,
follow a broken line of flight-yarrow stalks cast in the wind.

The landscape is planted with names she has given:
mother-of-the-evening, earthsmoke, blue sailor.
In the changeless changing of seasons
these remain true to you.

One by one, the unborn
announce themselves-risen from green shadows
day lilies tremble into light.

Out of loneliness or love you have gathered a few
you know will not keep the night
& lie in a dark house listening to the whisper of the wind of
the wing
that ferries a moon across water.

5, Mariposa Lilies by C. F. Macintyre

These are the flowers we forgot to order;
but they are here now punctually, for our eyes
to touch in passing, as one strokes a cat.
These little woodcolts of earth’s April-ardor:
let us sit down and range them in cool ease,
the smooth green calyx with the apricot

center of white corolla cut in three,
with the slim pistil and the antlered fellows
pressing like bridegrooms to the chamber door.
Among the world of things, today let through
this vision of love’s swirl of white and yellow-
then pluck a little bouquet if you dare.

Better to gather them in intimate sleep,
dreaming your mistress runs among the ferns
with chirpings and lithe raptures on tip-toe.
Better, you lie beneath them on the slope,
warm under sun, while their tall candles burn …
as the one wish is welded out of two.

6, Swamp Lilies by Josephine Pinckney

Today I feel new-born, for I have seen
A stretch of cloistered wood thick-spread with green,
Where wet wild lilies grew on every side,
Streaming away—an immobile white tide.
Not as the sun that bursts upon our eyes
At morning, making glory of the skies,
But like the slow, pervading evening light
They filled the eye-a world of silvery white
Withdrawn and exquisite, as from the sod
They breathed the still inviolateness of God.

7, The Lilies of France by Louise Ayres Garnett

France’s lilies are tall and white,
Brave as the dawn, calm as the night;
And fragrantly they sway above
The quiet head of one I love.

Unceasingly these fadeless flowers
Hasten their bloom through the war-swept hours,
And many a lad shall have their foam
Washing with peace his new-found home.

O France’s lilies are tall with pride,
Flooding the slopes of the western side.
It comforts me they sway above
The quiet head of one I love.

8, She Wakes the Lilies by Jeanette Grey

She is not dead;
She walks, and her white garments fall
About her softly.

She touches the roots
And they wake to life.

With her cool white hand
She touches white spring lilies
And wakes them
To blow with the wind.

She wakes them
Else how could they be so white?

She is not dead.

Here
She was queen,
She was the keeper of hearts.

There in her dark castle
She tends lilies,
She is the keeper of spring.

9, The White Lilies by Sandra Feldman

As the wind unfolds the Lilies,
Flower-Love of purity,
As they sway backwards and forward,
A recurring melody,
So my heart follows the Rhythm,
Of my old time memories,
And I think of you so softly,
And I want to touche your face,
And the dreams that are within me
Feel your white-loving embrace.

Yet reality is different,
Far from me you’ll always be,
As I gather wilted Lilies,
By the frigid-windy Sea.

10, Lilies For My Lovers by Edward Kofi Louis

Let me gather lilies for my lovers and,
Let me watch the stages of my muse;
For, i have sixty queens and eighty concubines!
And, virgins without number.

Come, oh virgin daughter of a mother! !
For you are the only daughter and child of your mother;
Come to me with your sweet muse of love and,
Let me gather lilies for you as well.

Aid, said!
All said and done;
Are you single or married?
For, i am now at the Channel Islands with my muse.

She, he!
Misplaced priority;
Win, winter!
Read it for yourself and come to me with your sweet love;
And, let me gather lilies for you.

He, she!
Boys Company;
Europ, rope!
Girls Company;
Come to em with your sweet muse of love and,
Let me gather lilies for you.

11, The Lilies Of The Field by Felicia Dorothea Hemans

Flowers! when the Saviour’s calm benignant eye
Fell on your gentle beauty; when from you
That heavenly lesson for all hearts He drew,
Eternal, universal, as the sky;
Then, in the bosom of your purity
A voice He set as in a temple-shrine,
That life’s quick travellers ne’er might pass you by,
Unwarn’d of that sweet oracle divine.
And though too oft its low, celestial sound,
By the harsh notes of work-day care is drown’d,
And the loud steps of vain, unlistening haste;
Yet the great Ocean hath no tone of power
Mightier to reach the soul in thought’s hush’d hour,
Than yours, meek lilies! – chosen thus and graced.

12, The White Lilies by Felicia Dorothea Hemans

As a man and woman make
a garden between them like
a bed of stars, here
they linger in the summer evening
and the evening turns
cold with their terror: it
could all end, it is capable
of devastation. All, all
can be lost, through scented air
the narrow columns
uselessly rising, and beyond,
a churning sea of poppies–

Hush, beloved. It doesn’t matter to me
how many summers I live to return:
this one summer we have entered eternity.
I felt your two hands
bury me to release its splendor.

13, River Lilies by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Saw a boy three lilies white,
Lilies in the river,
Half heart-open to the light,
Full of golden arrows bright,
Each a silver quiver.
Lilies, lilies, lilies white,
Lilies in the river.

Said the boy, “I’ll pluck you there,
Lilies in the river!”
Said the lilies, “If you dare
You shall drown, or homeward fare
Dripping and a-shiver!”
Lilies, lilies, lilies white,
Lilies in the river.

Wilful still the boy would clasp
Lilies in the river;
Tumbled in ere he could grasp,
Scrambled out with puff and gasp,
Plucked no lilies ever.
Lilies, lilies, lilies white,
Lilies in the river.

14, Consider The Lilies Of The Field by Christina Georgina Rossetti

Flowers preach to us if we will hear:—
The rose saith in the dewy morn:
I am most fair;
Yet all my loveliness is born
Upon a thorn.
The poppy saith amid the corn:
Let but my scarlet head appear
And I am held in scorn;
Yet juice of subtle virtue lies
Within my cup of curious dyes.
The lilies say: Behold how we
Preach without words of purity.
The violets whisper from the shade
Which their own leaves have made:
Men scent our fragrance on the air,
Yet take no heed
Of humble lessons we would read.
But not alone the fairest flowers:
The merest grass
Along the roadside where we pass,
Lichen and moss and sturdy weed,
Tell of His love who sends the dew,
The rain and sunshine too,
To nourish one small seed.

15, Consider The Lilies Of The Field by Sara Teasdale

If you have forgotten water lilies floating
On a dark lake among mountains in the afternoon shade,
If you have forgotten their wet, sleepy fragrance,
Then you can return and not be afraid.

But if you remember, then turn away forever
To the plains and the prairies where pools are far apart,
There you will not come at dusk on closing water lilies,
And the shadow of mountains will not fall on your heart.

16, The Dreamy Paleness of Reality by Annie Johnson

Soft the falling dew at twilight;
Ghostly the whiteness of the Lilies.
Brave the brightness of the Moon
Striking splendor in my soul.
Gentle the fingers of the night wind
Stroking strands of my moon-silver hair.
The scent of Lilies caresses my face
With the sweetness of Eden’s breath.
Passionate the memory of your mouth
Covering my own in the moonlight.
In this dreamy paleness of reality
I float on my awareness of you –
Alive from your pervading presence
Surrounding me in sacred shadows;
Gracing my being with such divinity.

17, Glorified Girl Friend by Engr Louis Awuloha

I have seen how beautiful lilies are,
Behind me, I can see roses glittering from afar,
Nothing on earth could be compared to it’s beauty,
These were my assumptions, until I met an epitome of beauty.

Dying to win her love right there, I was compelled to describe her:
Hi Angel with equiline nose,
You are so adorable than the beauty of roses,
I think you were discreetly made by a good sculpture,
And your ravishing face reveals the hidden beauty of nature.

You could go by the name: made in heaven;
For only angels come from heaven,
At the touch of your hand, I felt like a dove,
No doubt, that was a gentle touch of love.

She smiled and heaven revealed her dentition,
The gap on your upper and lower jaw are breath taken,
Pointing at me from your chest are two pairs of breast,
Each running in the same proportion with your size and height.

I have never seen a neck this exquisite,
Nature adorned it with a natural necklace,
Your eyes are very innocent and immaculate in whiteness
And you posses straight legs, similar to a straight line,
In fact, everything about you is simply fine.

Oh what of your curve?
It’s there like a bomb ready to explode,
Your maker gave it the shape of engineering french curve,
Without considering the feelings of men around.

Please, will you be my glorified girl friend?
Say yes and I will give you love that has no end,
And if it is possible to live forever,
I’d ask God to keep both of us together,
I give you my word;
My word is my bound,
Sorry, I don’t even know your name,
She said: call me your glorified girl friend.

18, To A Pretty Teeny by Krishnamurthy Rudrabhatla

May roses bloom in your cheeks
My lilies blossom in your eyes
May swans move in your steps
May peacocks sway in your hips

May you grow tall and stately
May your waist curve gently
May your bossom swell nicely
May your voice sound sweetly

May you be deemed a princess
May you be wooed by princes
May you be called a Helen
May you be crowned a queen

May you be noted for your curls
May you be loved for your smiles
May you be blessed with riches
May you be kissed by your kids

19, The Bouquet by Prince Steve Oyebode

I need the bouquet now.
Give me not at my funeral.
Present it now when I’m alive.
Let me have it when I can feel it.
It will be better appreciated now.

My instinct can differentiate now,
Be it lilies, Gladioli, Carnations,
Roses or Orchids.
Give me not when my hands can
no longer hold it.
When I’m glued with divine gum.

Give me now when I can see
the magnificent colours of them,
Bring them not to my tomb.
When my body is tired at beckoning at them.
Though my soul may feel it
possibly in its realm.

Better present them now.
When the value of it can be appreciated.
Never purchased them
When I’ve already exited the market.

Show me lilies of love now
Give me roses of kindness now.
Romance me with Orchids now
Spray those expensive colognes
when my body can dance and
salivate for more as delicacies.

20, Water Lilies by Lewis Jian

Last night,
by virtue of the noise
made by a pond
of garrulous frogs,
I could hardly
fall asleep all night,
guessing
another war was raging on
outside,
and thinking
it was next to impossible
to see the sunlight
tomorrow
Much to my delightment,
I woke up
to a pleasant morning;
The sun is still rising
How lovely!
In the serene pond,
water lilies are still pretty
and pure as angels.

21, Lilies by Ellen M. Carroll

Snowy, stately lilies in a jade-green bowl—
Feast for my earth-dust wearied eyes,
Refreshment for my soul!
Let me sit here in this dim room,
Quiet, in a willow chair—
Drifting, your faint, intriguing breath makes perfume.
The still air seems a magician’s passageway
For holy-heart-deep dreams.
Snowy, fragrant lilies in a jade-green bowl—
Peace, born of your exquisiteness,
Sanctifies my soul!

22, Consider the Lilies by John B. Tabb

Tis not the radiant star above
That breathes for me the lore of love
As doth the dewy censer sweet
That Heaven enkindles at my feet.
Yea, more for me of tenderness
Is uttered in the mute caress
Upon these moistened petals found,
Than e’er was wedded unto sound.

23, Lilies The Perfect Flower by Shadowhollow

Lilies for a mother,
Lilies for a wife,
Lilies to placed at the end of a life

Lilies for those with wild hearts
Lilies for those who cannot be tamed
Lilies for those who’s minds are inflamed

Water lilies atop a bewitching pond
Tiger lilies used for a crown
Lilies of the valley to match a delicate gown

Lilies give me solace for the day
In a place that is awfully grey
In a world that is darker than what is within me
To brighten my day just simply give me a lily.

24, White Lilies – A Gothic Love Story by The Wicca Man

When first I saw you,
you were lying on a green bank laughing at the sky
as you watched the clouds scud by
and you saw all kinds of shapes in those clouds
and gasped in awe as the myriad of birds
soared and wheeled through the clouds.

Your laugh skipped across the distance between us
like magical notes from a faery harp.
The sunlight lit up your golden hair
making diamonds out of the shafts of sunlight
as you turned your head to and fro
making the sunbeams dance to your tune.

And about your head was a halo of white lilies …

When next I saw you
you were hand in hand with your love
walking into the sunlight from the grey stone church.
Your brocade of white entwined with golden thread
sparkled like a million gems.
Your face was bright and alive with smiling eyes
and your golden hair fell down around your face
catching the sunbeams.
And ringing out their joy, the church bells pealed for you.

And in your hand was a bouquet of white lilies …

I saw you again
on that same green bank laughing with joy
as your golden child frolicked in the warm summer sun,
her childish laugh mingling with your own in angelic harmony.
You grasped her up and, wheeling her skyward,
faces upturned, letting the sunbeams play around you
and then, holding her close, you sank to your knees
cradling the babe, letting the love flow out and around you both.

And in the child’s small hand was grasped a single white lily …

The next time I saw you
you were quietly sitting in the late summer sun
comfortable in your chair watching the golden sun flame red
as it sank below the distant horizon.
Your golden hair now not so vibrant
and your face etched with the many years of your long life
yet when you smiled at the glory of the setting sun, the sparkle of your eyes
was not dimmed at all.

And around your feet grew a field of white lilies …

The last time I saw you
I gave you my hand and, with fingers entwined,
we walked away from the sombre crowd whose tears flowed like pearls
as the stark white coffin was lowered into the ground.
And looking into your face I saw you again
as you were that first time,
your golden hair that fell as rivulets
around your now pale, sad face.
I took that face in my hands and gently kissed your lips,
no more than a whisper, like a gentle spring breeze teasing the blossoms.
Still hand in hand, we looked back at the sad scene and then turned and walked into the light.

And all about your grave lay white lilies.

25, Lilies and Wine by Emanuel Martinez

Lilies and wine.
You’re drunk with love.
And night’s all shine.

So you starve and you crave.
Just a little bit more of Cupid’s touch.
Puffed smoke hearts surrounding the time.
Present once more the universe sparks in your soul.
Lousy noises melting into harmonies so fine.

Lilies and wine.
You’re drunk with love.
And night’s all shine.

Your heart’s secreting the serum of life.
Love is filling the hourglass of your time.
Now the pearl has found its light.
No pressure but weightlessness abounds.

Lilies and wine.
You’re drunk with love.
And night’s all shine.

Hold on firecely, lose yourself in beautiful time.
Tears of love and joy heal your wounds.
Flowers all fine, one you are, floating on air.
Swept out of reason, but your heart is too fine.

Lilies and wine.
You’re drunk with love.
And night’s all shine.

Capture the flower in your arms.
And drink the serum like wine.
Love is uplifting, and bare, taking you swiftly.

26, A Nymph Among Water Lilies by K Balachandran

Water lilies, libidinous lover boys, on the sly
circles her naked body, impertinently
while she unaware of this, swim and play
in her water-crazy, noisy country girl self
in this enclosure of ***** pines wildly in bloom,
She’s happy for being shielded from prying looks
of rowdy village boys, adept in disrobing her with their eyes

Enamored, the lilies, white, blue and purple
inebriated all, by drinking the nubile beauty
limitless all along,under the level of water
and above, breached all the reserves,
ahamelessly sevoured her saucy proximity
til she left when the dusk, shed saffron all over.
Yet in her innocence she would think,
“Poor darlings,how much did they suffer, as I
splashed and broke the calm of the pond all evening”

27, Bouquet of Lilies by Maria

She pulls me out of town with a bouquet of lilies
holding me tight, but soft, she talks about valleys of freedom.
She begs me to visit a country full of angel statues.
She’s so confusing but sweet somehow.

The way she talks about revolution makes you wanting to burn bridges
and you know you would do it if She let your hand.
You would have fight bats and demons
but she just couldn’t stop keeping you in touch.

She’s talking and talking and talking,
you’re not tired.
You’re trying to compliment her through your laugh.
She doesn’t let you speak.

Then she speaks out about how good you are,
how proud your children will be.
You can’t help but dream of a life with her.
She looks in the sky and smile.

She stops in front of a river.
The water is so clean.
Birds are dancing above it
making love to your dreams.

Now it’s the time to tell her how you love it when she sleeps,
how you’re drowning for a kiss,
how you would do anything to make her yours to be.
She sees deep into your eyes.

She gets so quiet.
You’re about to hug her
tell her you’re not comfortable with her silence;
she left your hand.

Whispering, she tells you she’s dying.
Her calm tone doesn’t change a bit.
You, you realize that the sun burns.
She monologues that it was burning for so long.

I’m standing here looking for the joke.
She begs me to take care of her dog.
You’re afraid to tell the little one, that mama’s not coming home.

She demands only lilies in her grave,
white lilies of hope,
the opposite
of her black soul.

The river is so ***** and dull.
The storm that came within killed the nightingales,
destroyed nature’s melodies,
rocks and branches like spears bloked the flow of the water
demanding for pure blood.

Wolves stand all around the river
crying their lives out,
the trees in the area scream and shout.
Someone could said they’re enjoying the chaos.

The lilies fell from her tiny hands.
Silence.

28, Calla Lilies by Francisco DH

The sun casted an arm around her shoulder
A companion was he.
Left to tend distant matters
As she harvested Calla Lilies.

From the depths of dark petunias
Crept a ravenous wolf.
Malicious intent pulsed in his thoughts
As she harvested Calla Lilies.

With a forceful snag he took the Calla Lilies.

29, Lilies to Carnations by J Harris

The soil recognizes
the vibration of your
soft soul and soft soles
when you walk around
the garden’s edge.

Grounds from every corner
of the world hasten
to be underneath your feet.

Twenty dignified, upright,
and humble footsteps
from the lilies
to carnations

and much of the earth
is covered.

30, Lilies by Anthony M De Santi

A gentle breeze
Caresses the still pond
Where willows weep
And thoughts can’t sleep.

The lilies glide
Over the surface
Their white petals
Shining with potential.

One stands out
With its roots so deep
And its pink sheen glistening
With a unique, ambiguous glow.

So subtle
Yet so remarkable,
That a dragonfly
Takes pause in flight.

31, Tiger Lilies by CA Guilfoyle

Lilies in the long grass
wild with tigers, striped orange
under trees, cool canopied
buds of sun blossoming
pretty cats slumber
sleek they dream
twitching whiskery
breathing slow
slinking low
as if to stalk
shock the
sallow moon
hunt and growl
purr and prowl
animal whisperings
stark the tiger lilies
glistening.

32, Lilies by Steven Martin

She steps with silence through the snow
The lilies love her laugh and know
She speaks with kindness
Love
And
Laughter

Knowing deeply
What comes after.

33, The Lilies Whisper Poetry by Deborah Amar

A summer day can never end
Or so it seems each year
The longer cycles of the sun
Make cloudy skies seem clear

Each time the wind begins to chime,
And end begins to near
A whisper of the softest sort
Flows gently to the ear

The scent and sight enough are great
Yet lilies live for more
The lilies whisper poetry
As none have heard before

The lilies whisper to the day
That sends the breeze below
It touches ground that none can see
Where lilies lively grow

Beautifully arrayed in white
And drinking from the soil
Free to whisper their poetry
Without the need to toil

But flowers do not last the year
And newer buds must bloom
So short the span of lily life
To give new blossoms room

The lilies whisper poetry
That none shall ever know
For just as summer cannot last
The lilies cease to grow

But beauty lives from that which dies
And leaves something to last
For lilies whisper poetry
For lilies of the past

34, The Lily by William Blake

The modest Rose puts forth a thorn,
The humble sheep a threat’ning horn:
While the Lily white shall in love delight,
Nor a thorn nor a threat stain her beauty bright.

35, Cut Lilies by Noah Warren

More than a hundred dollars of them.
It was pure folly. I had to find more glass things to stuff them
in.
Now a white and purple cloud is breathing in each corner
of the room I love. Now a mass of flowers spills down my
dining table—
each fresh-faced, extending its delicately veined leaves
into the crush. Didn’t I watch
children shuffle strictly in line, cradle
candles that dribbled hot white on their fingers,
chanting Latin—just to fashion Sevilla’s Easter? Wasn’t I sad?
Didn’t I use to
go mucking through streambeds with the skunk cabbage raising
bursting violet spears? —Look, the afternoon dies
as night begins in the heart of the lilies and smokes up
their fluted throats until it fills the room
and my lights have to be not switched on.
And in close darkness the aroma grows so sweet,
so strong, that it could slice me open. It does.
I know I’m not the only one whose life is a conditional clause
hanging from something to do with spring and one tall room
and the tremble of my phone.
I’m not the only one that love makes feel like a dozen
flapping bedsheets being ripped to prayer flags by the wind.
When I stand in full sun I feel I have been falling headfirst for
decades.
God, I am so transparent.
So light.

36, Lilies by German

Those lilies of the field, one Sunday night
I got caught in Pocono traffic and sat there
for twenty minutes during the which in front
a madman saw me in his mirror and leaped
out of his car and running screamed Dr. Stern
I followed your advice I gave up everything
Thoreau was right simplicity I was your
student the which I stared at him the cars were
starting up again but I no longer
believed and had to leave him stranded, I
love you, I shouted, read something else, I would
have pulled off the side of the road but there was no
shoulder there and so I lost him, whatever his
name was. I made a sharp left turn and that was
that, but what I owe him in his under
shirt, how long his beard was then, his eyes
were blue, his tires were bald, what Christ owes me!

37, The Lilies by Karenne Wood

When I learned I might have cancer,
I bought fifteen white lilies. Easter was gone:
the trumpets were wilted, plants crooked with roots
bound in pots. I dug them into the garden,
knowing they would not bloom for another year.
All summer, the stalks stood like ramshackle posts
while I waited for results. By autumn, the stalks
had flopped down. More biopsies, laser incisions,
the cancer in my tongue a sprawling mass. Outside,
the earth remained bare, rhizomes shrunken
below the frost line. Spring shoots appeared
in bright green skins, and lilies bloomed
in July, their waxed trumpets pure white,
dusting gold pollen to the ground.
This year,
tripled in number, they are popping up again. I wait,
a ceremony, for the lilies to open, for the serpentine length
of the garden to bloom in the shape of my tongue’s scar,
a white path with one end leading into brilliant air,
the other down the throat’s canyon, black
and unforgiving. I try to imagine
what could grow in such darkness. I am waiting
for the lilies to open.

38, I Had An Errand There: Gathering Water-Lilies by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien

I had an errand there: gathering water-lilies,
green leaves and lilies white to please my pretty lady,
the last ere the year’s end to keep them from the winter,
to flower by her pretty feet till the snows are melted.
Each year at summer’s end I go to find them for her,
in a wide pool, deep and clean, far down Withywindle;
there they open first in spring and there they linger latest.
By that pool long ago I found the River-daughter,
fair young Goldberry sitting in the rushes.
Sweet was her singing then, and her heart was beating!

And that proved well for you- for now I shall no longer
go down deep again along the forest-water,
not while the year is old. Nor shall I be passing
Old Man Willow’s house this side of spring-time,
not till the merry spring, when the River-daughter
dances down the withy-path too bathe in the water.

39, Lilies by Mary Oliver

I have been thinking
About living
Like the lilies
That blow in the fields.

They rise and fall
In the edge of the wind,
And have no shelter
From the tongues of the cattle,

And have no closets or cupboards,
And have no legs.
Still I would like to be
As wonderful

As the old idea.
But if I were a lily
I think I would wait all day
For the green face

Of the hummingbird
To touch me.
What I mean is,
Could I forget myself

Even in those feathery fields?
When Van Gogh
Preached to the poor
Of coarse he wanted to save someone

Most of all himself.
He wasn’t a lily,
And wandering through the bright fields
Only gave him more ideas

It would take his life to solve.
I think I will always be lonely
In this world, where the cattle
Graze like a black and white river

Where the vanishing lilies
Melt, without protest, on their tongues
Where the hummingbird, whenever there is a fuss,
Just rises and floats away.

40, Lilies Of The Valley by Aufie Zophy

A baby as tender
as the fragrance
of lilies of the valley

A toddler, good boy
as the perfume
of a jasmine flower

A child doing his best
as strong as the smell
of a stormy sea

Dreaming of a princess
as beautiful as the sight
of the skies at dawn

Studying, working hard
as hard as the touch
of a polished diamond

But then
becoming aware
that what counts is:

To be loving and tender
as the fragrance
of lilies of the valley

41, Snow White Lilies by RoseAnn V. Shawiak

Capturing imagination, enticing it’s ambitions into the
brilliance of interior spheres, a ringing blended with
the chemistry of attitudes, clicking automatically with
artistic abilities.

Twisting, turning into fields of snow white lilies which
in reality are the white designs of snowflakes falling
straight from heaven above, into thoughts I’m thinking
and into this poem.

42, Smell Of Lilies by Dr. A.Celestine Raj Manohar M.D.,

Be it a flower garden, orchard or nursery
Forest or zoo, circus or sanctuary
Flora or fauna, domestic or in the wild
All have a scent that fills the air
So is the stench of corpses, carcasses after a tsunami
But the smell of lilies in a garden is my favorite smell

43, The Pond With Water Lilies by Gert Strydom

Rooted down into the pond
the water lily’s leaves go beyond

the open surface, does cover almost all of the water,
which do fill the battling ground, the small filled crater,

while here and there patches are left open
being places where almost anything could happen,

where the butterfly flutters as to the flowers it passes by
and inquisitive for something to hunt hangs the dragonfly.

The dragonfly rainbow sparkles like liquid metal on the hunt for meat
as it flashes past battle ready to something that it can eat

while much later the eggs of the butterfly hatch in ravenous worms
and enemies do come to prey in all kinds of forms:

as birds landing at the very edge, cats prowling around it
and at a time each one waiting on the moment to strike and hit

while the children’s dogs stare at their own reflection
or deeper still into the water beyond and from them there is no protection.

Golden-fishes prowl around looking for mosquito larva as their food
and that everything must survive somehow is understood,

smaller fish swim around and avoid being eaten by the bigger one
and hide among the stems and roots until it is gone

and this cycle of life where each thing does on each other prey
has been in place since the sin-fall day

where smaller systems do fit into bigger ones on which they do depend
and together all do function as if serving each and all without an end

to make a living world where you and I do only the flowers see
where they look as if they are drifting and to us everything looks pretty.

44, The Red Arum Lilies by Gert Strydom

The red arum lilies that I did bring to you
you pressed into the ground at the garden-flat
as if you wanted to forget me
and when we later did marry and live together
you found those flowers again,
did know of a better place for them
and pulled them one after the other out of the ground
and planted them at the palisades in a row.

45, Smell Of Lilies by Liza Sud

Smell of lilies pervades the room…
And a star burns up in the sky.
Dear friend, is it really you,
Or at last it is our God?

Long ago I lost the sense.
So help me I ask you please.
Smell of lilies my room pervades,
And it’s God who to me here speaks.

→ Read more: Poems About Dandelion Flowers or Famous Poems About Flowers