A Gilded Cage and a Hearkening

(Photo taken at a "Southern Green Gables" on Johnson St., New Bern, NC--May 3, 2010)
This photo taken yesterday of a beautiful flower protected by a fence reminds me in a symbolic way of the life of LM Montgomery. Maud, during her raising up years, was able to develop into a beautiful flower largely due to the protection and puritanical restrictions applied by her prim and proper (and Presbyterian) Grandmother McNeil. The symbolism here is that the beautiful flower is admiring the liberty of the brittle leaves that are able to fly like feathers in the whimsy of the wind.

There is irony in this-- that after Grandmother McNeil passed away and freedom was at hand--Maud remained in the condition of one who is still restrained. She is like a tamed bird who has always admired the freedom of birds in the sky, but when the cage door is opened, she does not realize that freedom is at hand, and thus remains unaware of her real nature of flying free at last....
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Morning along Shore
by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Hark, oh hark the elfin laughter
All the little waves along,
As if echoes speeding after
Mocked a merry merman's song!
All the gulls are out, delighting
In a wild, uncharted quest­
See the first red sunshine smiting
Silver sheen of wing and breast!
Ho, the sunrise rainbow-hearted
Steals athwart the misty brine,
And the sky where clouds have parted
Is a bowl of amber wine!
Sweet, its cradle-lilt partaking,
Dreams that hover o'er the sea,
But the lyric of its waking
Is a sweeter thing to me!
Who would drowze in dull devotion
To his ease when dark is done,
And upon its breast the ocean
Like a jewel wears the sun?
"Up, forsake a lazy pillow!"
Calls the sea from cleft and cave,
Ho, for antic wind and billow
When the morn is on the wave!