A nun demure of lowly port; Or sprightly maiden, of Love's court, Of all temptations; A queen in crown of rubies drest; A little cyclops, with one eye That thought comes next-and instantly The shape will vanish-and behold I see thee glittering from afar- Yet like a star, with glittering crest, Bright Flower! for by that name at last, I call thee, and to that cleave fast, That breath'st with me in sun and air, Of thy meek nature ! 1805 XIV TO THE DAISY BRIGHT Flower! whose home is everywhere, Bold in maternal Nature's care, And all the long year through the heir Of joy or sorrow; Methinks that there abides in thee Some concord with humanity, Given to no other flower I see Is it that Man is soon deprest? A thoughtless Thing! who, once unblest, Or on his reason, And Thou would'st teach him how to find A shelter under every wind, A hope for times that are unkind And every season? Thou wander'st the wide world about, Meek, yielding to the occasion's call, In peace fulfilling. 1803 XV THE SMALL CELANDINE THERE is a Flower, the lesser Celandine, When hailstones have been falling, swarm on swarm, In close self-shelter, like a Thing at rest. But lately, one rough day, this Flower I passed. I stopped, and said with inly-muttered voice, "It doth not love the shower, nor seek the cold: This neither is its courage nor its choice, But its necessity in being old. The sunshine may not cheer it, nor the dew; Stiff in its members, withered, changed of hue." To be a Prodigal's Favourite-then, worse truth, O Man, that from thy fair and shining youth XVI THIS Lawn, a carpet all alive With shadows flung from leaves-to strive In dance, amid a press Of sunshine, an apt emblem yields Of Worldlings revelling in the fields Less quick the stir when tide and breeze Forbid a moment's rest; The medley less when boreal Lights To feats of arms addrest! 1804 Yet, spite of all this eager strife, 1829 XVII So fair, so sweet, withal so sensitive, Would that the little Flowers were born to live, That to this mountain-daisy's self were known And what if hence a bold desire should mount So might he ken how by his sovereign aid And were the Sister-power that shines by night |