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

Sweet stranger lady, of a southern land,
And hast thou ventured so far north away?
Has the soft magic of a lady's hand
Evoked thy slimness from the cold north clay?

Thy sister Primrose is a damsel bold
That will be found, mayhap before we seek;
Thou art a lady, coy, yet not so cold,
Tall and erect, though modest, yet not weak.

Thou art not lively in thy bashful mood,
But rather, like a sweet devoted Nun,
Fearing the guile of selfish solitude,
Content of many sisters to be one.

I cannot look upon thee, delicate plant,
Nor taste the gentleness of thy perfume,
And not conceive the living world too scant
To give thy beauties and thy meanings room.

What time the Fairies made their orbs of green,
And gave to every herb mysterious power,
Thou wert the chosen crest of Elfin Queen,
Her banner tall in battle's perilous hour.

When eve of May, and all its wizard spells,
Was aye succeeded by the glad May morn,
The pendant Cowslip, with its silent bells,
Adorn'd the pole by village maidens borne.

When London yet was but a scatter'd town,
Dotting gay fields and garden with her towers,
And gravest cits, with a relaxing frown,
Let out their tripping girls to gather flowers.

Ah! surely it had been a lovely sight
To see them trooping, ere the sun was high,
Back to their frugal homes with garlands dight
Of Cowslips pale, in sweetness doom'd to die.

The ruddier daughters of the hamlet oft
With balls of Cowslips pelted one another,
Or heap'd the hay, so flowery, sweet, and soft,
With fragrant load some panting nymph to smother.

Maybe, these frolics of the antique age
Were all too rude, meek lady-flower, for thee:
Methinks thy fittest doom, on holy page
Of book devout, to fade in sanctity;

Where pious woman oft is wont to read,
And seeing thy pale relics, stops to pray,
That, like the virgin daughter of the mead,
She may be sweet, and hallow'd in decay.

July 13, 1844.