WHAT'S THE STORY MORNING GLORY?

Design for a pendant or watchcase set with heart-shaped stone and framed by a morning-glory vine  

Gustav Manz, c. 1900
Mathews family collection

For Valentine's Day, two poems celebrating the flower encircling Gustav Manz's heart-shaped pendant...

One morning, Japanese poet Chiyo-ni (1703-75) found her water pail floating in her well, and the rope entwined by morning-glory tendrils. Rather than disturb the plant, she went out and begged water from her neighbors — and composed this charming haiku...

Asago ni

Tsurube torarete

Morai-midzu 

[The morning glory

has seized my well-bucket 

Gift-water]

—Kaga no Chiyo-ni "The Asagao" (Morning-Face)

Gold, platinum,diamond morning glory 
watch pin by Gustav Manz, c. 1900

Mathews family collection  

That I walk up my stoop, I pause to consider if it really be,

A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the meta- physics of books.

—Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself" (1881)

          

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