Boots were of leather
A breath of cologne2
Her mirror was a window
She sat quite alone
All around her
the garden grew
scarlet and purple
and crimson and blue
She came and she went
and at last went away
The garden was sealed3
when the flowers decayed
On the wall of the garden
a legend did say:
No one may come here
since no one may stay
Words by Robert Hunter
Music by Jerry Garcia
Rosmarinus officinalis. Alice Coats, in Flowers and Their Histories, calls rosemary the “herb of herbs: beloved above all, associated with innumberable legends and traditions, and put to a hundred uses.” Among these innumberable legends and traditions is that of “rosemary for remembrance” and “therefore to friendship,” according to Sir Thomas More. Other traditions include use in burials (in England, sprigs of rosemary were thrown into graves into the 1800s) and weddings (brides and grooms both carried it). Ros marinus means “dew of the sea” because it is supposed to grow best when the sound of the ocean is near.
Gabriele Tergit, in her Flowers Through the Ages, also has quite a bit to say about rosemary:
To wake the Sleeping Beauty, she had to be touched by rosemary, a plant of many legends and ancient beliefs, and of many uses—curative, ornamental, culinary, as a love potion and a symbol of mourning.
and
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries rosemary became also the flower of mourning. “I dreamed this night a dismal dream / Rosemary grew in my garden . . . ” says a German folk song.
“There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance,” said Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and it may be surmised that rosemary was placed on her grave. 23
P. S. Also the name of my wonderful daughter.
Again, to cite Gabriele Tergit:
Eau de cologne is probably the most popular toilet water of the world. It seems likely that it was invented at Cologne in 1709 by Johann Maria Farina, an Italian immigrant. Others say that it was invented by a Paul de Feminis, who imported the process of its manufacture from Milan in 1690. Many people named Farina have since come to Cologne, bringing with them the right to use the authentic name. . . . The ingredients were strictly secret. 24
Compare The Secret Garden (by Francis Hodgson Burnett, 1849–1924), in which the garden in the book is sealed because children no longer play in it and it therefore falls into decay.
Studio recording: Aoxomoxoa (June 20, 1969).
Never played live, as far as we know. But the song listed in DeadBase as “unknown: Garcia singing” at the December 7, 1968, performance at Bellarmine College, Louisville, Kentucky, may have been “Rosemary,” according to some sources.