"When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd"

There's something comforting about the same old progression of flowers each Spring: crocus, daffodils, tulips, bleeding hearts, lilacs, then peonies and roses. All familiar friends that bloom just once a year (except for roses, although the second flowering is never as good as the first.)

The lilacs are blooming outside the front porch, and I love how the smell comes in the house. There are so many huge lilacs in this neighborhood, all planted many years ago.
   
A tough, long-lived shrub, lilacs can grow almost everywhere, from ranches to city gardens. We had lilac hedges! on our farm in Pennsylvania.  Mom loved the scrubby lilacs at the old family house in Cripple Creek, Colorado. They survived Rocky Mountain winters at 10,000 feet.

Syringa vulgaris (common lilac) originally came to Europe from the middle East. The name is from an old Persian world for "blue." A beloved flower, lilacs are often referenced in literature.

Lydia Huntley Sigourney (1791-1865) wrote these romantic lines about Persian lilacs:

Lilac of Persia! Tell us some fine tale
Of Eastern lands; we're fond of travelers.
Have you no legends of some sultan proud,
Or old fire-worshiper?
 
My favorite lilac poem, "Portrait of a Lady" by T.S. Eliot, tells a story of sorts. A young man visits an upper class English lady of a certain age, with whom he's had a relationship. He says he's leaving on extended trip abroad. She puts on a brave face, but has a few sharp words about the cruelty of youth:

 Now that lilacs are in bloom
She has a bowl of lilacs in her room
And twists one in his fingers while she talks.
"Ah, my friend, you do not know, you do not know
What life is, you who hold it in your hands";
(Slowly twisting the lilac stalks)
"You let it flow from you, you let it flow,
And youth is cruel, and has no remorse
And smiles at situations which it cannot see."
 
I smile, of course,
And go on drinking tea.

"Yet with these April sunsets, that somehow recall
My buried life, and Paris in the Spring,
I feel immeasurably at peace, and find the world
To be wonderful and youthful, after all."

And the most famous lilac poem written by Walt Whitman, about the death of Abraham Lincoln. The lines begin:

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd

And the early star droop'd in the western sky at night...