 | The Poetical Works of Caroline Bowles Southey |  |
But thriving plants were there, though not of price.
No puny children of a foreign soil,
But hardy natives of our own dear earth,
From many a field and bank and streamlet side
Transplanted careful, with the adhering mould.
The primrose, with her large indented leaves
And many blossoms pale, expanded there,
With wild anemone, and hyacinth,
And languid cowslip, lady of the mead,
And violets' mingled hues of every sort,
Blue, white, and purple. The more fragrant white
Even from that very root, in many a patch
Extended wide, still scents the garden round.
Maternal love received the childish gift,
A welcome offering, and the lowly flower,
A rustic stranger, bloomed with cultured sweets;
And still it shares their bed, encroaching oft—
So ignorance presumes—on worthier claims.
She spared it in the tenderness of love,
Her child's first gift; and I, for her dear sake,
Who prized the pale intruder, spare it now.
No puny children of a foreign soil,
But hardy natives of our own dear earth,
From many a field and bank and streamlet side
Transplanted careful, with the adhering mould.
The primrose, with her large indented leaves
And many blossoms pale, expanded there,
With wild anemone, and hyacinth,
And languid cowslip, lady of the mead,
And violets' mingled hues of every sort,
Blue, white, and purple. The more fragrant white
Even from that very root, in many a patch
Extended wide, still scents the garden round.
25
A welcome offering, and the lowly flower,
A rustic stranger, bloomed with cultured sweets;
And still it shares their bed, encroaching oft—
So ignorance presumes—on worthier claims.
She spared it in the tenderness of love,
Her child's first gift; and I, for her dear sake,
Who prized the pale intruder, spare it now.
| The Poetical Works of Caroline Bowles Southey | |