Nathaniel Parker Willis:
(January 20, 1806 – January 20, 1867).
Also known as N. P. Willis, was an American writer, poet and editor who worked with several notable American writers including Edgar Allan Poe and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
He became the highest-paid magazine writer of his day.
His brother was the composer Richard Storrs Willis and his sister Sara wrote under the name Fanny Fern. Harriet Jacobs wrote her autobiography while being employed as his children’s nurse.
It is the month of June, the month of leaves and roses when pleasant sights salute the eyes and pleasant scents the noses.
The quote celebrates ‘June’ as a month of ‘natural beauty and sensory pleasure’.
– “leaves and roses” refers to:
– 🌳 full foliage
– 🌹 blooming roses
– “pleasant sights” emphasizes what pleases the ‘eye’
– “pleasant scents” refers to what the “nose” finds pleasant. In short:
> ‘June is presented as the month in which nature is at its richest, most beautiful and most fragrant.’
So it is not a profound wisdom about life, but rather a ‘light, poetic hymn to early summer’.
📚 Origin:
It is not a traditional ‘proverb or saying’, but a ‘literary quotation’.
English text
> “It is the month of June,
> The month of leaves and roses,
> When pleasant sights salute the eyes,
> And pleasant scents the noses.”
Origin:
– The quote is from the poem “The Month of June”.
– It was later included in “Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations”
– including in the 1919 edition
– That recording shows that the quote was “known and canonized,” but “Bartlett is not the original source,” only an important “secondary source.”
Important nuance:
– Original source: the poem “The Month of June”
– Later recording: “Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations”.
👤 Author:
-Nathaniel Parker Willis (1806–1867)
– American writer, poet and journalist.
Conclusion about the attribution:
– The attribution to Nathaniel Parker Willis is considered ‘correct’
– In this case, not only the name is known, but also the ’title of the poem’ from which the quotation comes.
