 | Lyrical Poems |  |
81
THE WOOD-SORREL.
—The wood-sorrel, oxalis acetosella, very abundant in our Scottish woods. From this plant oxalic acid is extracted.
Fair flower, beneath the dark fir-tree
Shaded in delicate pudency,
I'll make a little rhyme to thee,
(Some years I owe it):
Pansies and lilies have their praises,
Small celandines and broad-faced daisies;
But thou, sweet sorrel of the woods,
The tenderest grace of solitudes,
I do not know it,
If thou hast stirred the deeper moods
Of any poet.
Shaded in delicate pudency,
I'll make a little rhyme to thee,
(Some years I owe it):
Pansies and lilies have their praises,
Small celandines and broad-faced daisies;
But thou, sweet sorrel of the woods,
The tenderest grace of solitudes,
I do not know it,
If thou hast stirred the deeper moods
Of any poet.
Thou'rt like a maiden in the bud,
Bashful, ere life's full-swelling flood
Hath shot into the outer blood
A bolder feeling.
Thy trefoil shield thou spread'st before thee,
That I to find thy flower bend o'er thee,
And wonder how so lowly there
Was set a gem so pure, so fair,
Such charms concealing:
For why should God create the fair
But for revealing?
Bashful, ere life's full-swelling flood
Hath shot into the outer blood
A bolder feeling.
82
That I to find thy flower bend o'er thee,
And wonder how so lowly there
Was set a gem so pure, so fair,
Such charms concealing:
For why should God create the fair
But for revealing?
Yet have I seen both fair and good
I' the perfect bloom of womanhood,
Who, like thyself, the light eschewed,
Thou wood-nymph fairest!
And wept to think how foplings shallow
Left such deep quiet virtue fallow,
To feed vain gaze on flaunting show
Of painted things, in formal row,
The coldest, barest;
While thou, low-veiled, and nodding low,
Wert blushing rarest.
I' the perfect bloom of womanhood,
Who, like thyself, the light eschewed,
Thou wood-nymph fairest!
And wept to think how foplings shallow
Left such deep quiet virtue fallow,
To feed vain gaze on flaunting show
Of painted things, in formal row,
The coldest, barest;
While thou, low-veiled, and nodding low,
Wert blushing rarest.
And God, who planted thee, was wise,
I' the shade—no vulgar-vended prize
For men, whose love is in their eyes,
And goes no deeper:
Better for thee, and such as thou art,
To be the forest-nun thou now art,
Than yoked to some loose-dangling mate
Whom thou canst neither love nor hate,
Thy body's keeper,
But to thy sweet soul's estimate
Blind, or a sleeper.
I' the shade—no vulgar-vended prize
For men, whose love is in their eyes,
And goes no deeper:
83
To be the forest-nun thou now art,
Than yoked to some loose-dangling mate
Whom thou canst neither love nor hate,
Thy body's keeper,
But to thy sweet soul's estimate
Blind, or a sleeper.
Me may the God who sways the heart
Wean more from each false flaring art,
And still some modest truth impart
Through thy revealing!
As, yearly, sooty crowds eschewing,
The fragrant fresh May-breezes wooing,
My footed pilgrimage I make
Through wood and wold, and passive take
Each vagrant feeling,
Which thou, and such as thou, can wake
With balmy healing.
Wean more from each false flaring art,
And still some modest truth impart
Through thy revealing!
As, yearly, sooty crowds eschewing,
The fragrant fresh May-breezes wooing,
My footed pilgrimage I make
Through wood and wold, and passive take
Each vagrant feeling,
Which thou, and such as thou, can wake
With balmy healing.
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