Flower Pieces and other poems By William Allingham: With two designs by Dante Gabriel Rossetti |
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THREE FLOWERS. |
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 | Flower Pieces and other poems |  |
129
THREE FLOWERS.
I
A pilgrim light for travel boundTrips through a gay parterre,
The cool fresh dewdrops on the ground
The lark's song in the air.
One Bud, where free of cloud or mist
Heav'n's colour doth unfold,
He claims with joy, hath fondly kiss'd,
And next his heart will hold,—
How happy! might the tender thing,
The blue delightful blossom,
But keep the sweetness of its Spring,
Nor wither in his bosom.
II
He strides along through cultured fieldsBy manly contest won,
Enjoys the sylvan bow'r that shields
From rage of noontide sun;
But see the rich red Bloom!—for this,
Come good or evil hap,
He climbs the slippery precipice,
To set it in his cap;
Then forward, forward, proudly flies,
Too swift and proud for heeding
How leaf by leaf his vaunted prize
Is scatter'd in the speeding.
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III
On moorland now he wends his way,The heather far and near
Steep'd in the solemn sinking day
And the sad waning year.
His bent regard descries a Flow'r,
White as a hill of snow,
Whose subtle fragrancy hath pow'r
To bring him kneeling low.
He takes the Flow'r. He drops asleep,
The dropping sun to face him.
Roll on above, thou starry deep!
Night-shadow doth embrace him.
| Flower Pieces and other poems | |