Volume Iii Part 35 (1/2)

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, April's gift to April's bees, Birthday ornament of Spring, Flora's fairest daughterling; Coming when no flowerets dare Trust the cruel outer air; When the royal kingcup bold Dares not don his coat of gold; And the st.u.r.dy black-thorn spray Keeps his silver for the May;-- Coming when no flowerets would, Save thy lowly sisterhood, Early violets; blue and white, Dying for their love of light;-- Almond blossom, sent to teach us That the spring days soon will reach us, Lest, with longing over-tried, We die, as the violets died;-- Blossom, clouding all the tree With thy crimson broidery, Long before a leaf of green On the bravest bough is seen;-- Ah! when winter winds are swinging All thy red bells into ringing, 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,-- All--white!

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; A very rapture of white; A wedlock Of silence and light: White, white as the wonder undefiled Of Eve just wakened in Paradise; Nay, white as the angel of a child That looks into G.o.d's own eyes!

Harriet McEwen Kimball [1834-1917]

b.u.t.tERCUPS

There must be fairy miners Just underneath the mould, Such wondrous quaint designers Who live in caves of gold.

They take the s.h.i.+ning metals, And beat them into shreds, And mould them into petals To make the flowers' heads.

Sometimes they melt the flowers To tiny seeds like pearls, And store them up in bowers For little boys and girls.

And still a tiny fan turns Above a forge of gold, To keep, with fairy lanterns, The world from growing old.

Wilfrid Thorley [1878-

THE BROOM FLOWER

Oh the Broom, the yellow Broom, The ancient poet sung it, And dear it is on summer days To lie at rest among it.

I know the realms where people say The flowers have not their fellow; I know where they s.h.i.+ne out like suns, The crimson and the yellow.

I know where ladies live enchained In luxury's silken fetters, And flowers as bright as glittering gems Are used for written letters.

But ne'er was flower so fair as this, In modern days or olden; It groweth on its nodding stem Like to a garland golden.