| Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922. | | | | The Flowers | | By William Brighty Rands (1823–1882) |
| | | WHEN Love arose in heart and deed | |
| To wake the world to greater joy, | |
| ‘What can she give me now?’ said Greed, | |
| Who thought to win some costly toy. | |
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| He rose, he ran, he stoop’d, he clutch’d; | 5 |
| And soon the Flowers, that Love let fall, | |
| In Greed’s hot grasp were fray’d and smutch’d, | |
| And Greed said, ‘Flowers! Can this be all?’ | |
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| He flung them down and went his way, | |
| He cared no jot for thyme or rose; | 10 |
| But boys and girls came out to play, | |
| And some took these and some took those— | |
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| Red, blue, and white, and green and gold; | |
| And at their touch the dew return’d, | |
| And all the bloom a thousandfold— | 15 |
| So red, so ripe, the roses burn’d! | | | | |
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