While the crowd runs by the way, With ten thousand flowers about them they came trooping through the fields. As a happy people come, So came they, As a happy people come When the war has rolled away, With dance and tabor, pipe and drum, And all make holiday. Then came the cowslip, Like a dancer in the fair, She spread her little mat of green, And on it danced she. With a fillet bound about her brow, A fillet round her happy brow, A golden fillet round her brow, And rubies in her hair. Sydney Dobell [1824-1874] FLOWERS SPAKE full well, in language quaint and olden Stars they are, wherein we read our history, Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery, Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous, Bright and glorious is that revelation, In these stars of earth, these golden flowers. Flowers And the Poet, faithful and far-seeing, Which is throbbing in his brain and heart. Gorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining, Brilliant hopes, all woven in gorgeous tissues, 1415 These in flowers and men are more than seeming; Which the Poet, in no idle dreaming, Seeth in himself and in the flowers. Everywhere about us are they glowing, Some like stars, to tell us Spring is born; Others, their blue eyes with tears o'erflowing, Stand like Ruth amid the golden corn; Not alone in Spring's armorial bearing, Not alone in meadows and green alleys, Not alone in her vast dome of glory, In the cottage of the rudest peasant; In ancestral homes, whose crumbling towers, Speaking of the Past unto the Present, Tell us of the ancient Games of Flowers; In all places, then, and in all seasons, Flowers expand their light and soul-like wings, Teaching us, by most persuasive reasons, How akin they are to human things. And with childlike, credulous affection, FLOWERS I WILL not have the mad Clytie, Whom, therefore, I will shun: The pea is but a wanton witch, Nor will I dreary rosemarye, That always mourns the dead; But I will woo the dainty rose, With her cheeks of tender red. The lily is all in white, like a saint, And the daisy's cheek is tipped with a blush, Almond Blossom Jasmine is sweet, and has many loves, For fairest of all is she. 1417 Thomas Hood (1799-1845] A CONTEMPLATION UPON FLOWERS You come abroad, and make a harmless show, You are not proud: you know your birth: You do obey your months and times, but I My fate would know no Winter, never die, O that I could my bed of earth but view O teach me to see Death and not to fear, How often have I seen you at a bier, And there look fresh and spruce! You fragrant flowers! then teach me, that my breath Like yours may sweeten and perfume my death. Henry King [1592-1669] ALMOND BLOSSOM BLOSSOM of the almond trees, And the sturdy black-thorn spray Dying for their love of light;- That the spring days soon will reach us, With a bee in every bell, Almond bloom, we greet thee well. Edwin Arnold [1832–1904] WHITE AZALEAS AZALEAS-whitest of white! White as the drifted snow Fresh-fallen out of the night, Before the coming glow Tinges the morning light; When the light is like the snow, White, And the silence is like the light: Light, and silence, and snow,- White! not a hint Of the creamy tint A rose will hold, The whitest rose, in its inmost fold; Not a possible blush; White as an embodied hush; |