Poems by Hartley Coleridge :: :: University of Virginia Library

Lady, beyond the wide Atlantic main
Huge trees hast thou beheld, and gorgeous flowers,
And poor may be to thee, and dim, and plain
The simple posies of this isle of ours;
Yet, lady, humbly I present to thee
A flower refined in her simplicity.
The lady cowslip, that, amid the grass,
Is tall and comely as a virgin queen.
The primrose is a bonny peasant lass,
The bold and full-blown beauty of the green;
She seems on mossy bank, in forest glade,
Most meet to be the cowslip's waiting maid.
But the coy cowslip—coy, though doom'd to stand
In state erect upon the open field—
Declines her head, the lady of the land
That must be public, fain would be conceal'd,
Knowing how much she ought to all impart,
Yet much retaining with an artless art;

For there is beauty in the cowslip bell
That must be sought for ere it can be spied,
And her pure perfume must be known full well
Before its goodness can be testified;
And therefore do I give the flower to thee,
Thinking thee better than I know or see.