Lilacs in Eliot's poetry
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Eliot used lilacs in a romantic or sensual manner elsewhere in his poetry, both before and after the publication of The Waste Land.

Here is an excerpt from "Portrait of a Lady" (published in Prufrock and Other Observations, 1917):

• 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."

• Blown hair is sweet, brown hair over the mouth blown,
• Lilac and brown hair;