| |
| DEAR common flower, that grow’st beside the way, | |
| Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold! | |
| First pledge of blithesome May, | |
| Which children pluck, and, full of pride, uphold— | |
| High-hearted buccaneers, o’erjoyed that they | 5 |
| An Eldorado in the grass have found, | |
| Which not the rich earth’s ample round | |
| May match in wealth!—thou art more dear to me | |
| Than all the prouder summer-blooms may be. | |
| |
| Gold such as thine ne’er drew the Spanish prow | 10 |
| Through the primeval hush of Indian seas; | |
| Nor wrinkled the lean brow | |
| Of age to rob the lover’s heart of ease. | |
| ’T is the spring’s largess, which she scatters now | |
| To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand; | 15 |
| Though most hearts never understand | |
| To take it at God’s value, but pass by | |
| The offered wealth with unrewarded eye. | |
| |
| Thou art my tropics and mine Italy; | |
| To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime; | 20 |
| The eyes thou givest me | |
| Are in the heart, and heed not space or time: | |
| Not in mid June the golden-cuirassed bee | |
| Feels a more summer-like warm ravishment | |
| In the white lily’s breezy tent, | 25 |
| His conquered Sybaris, than I, when first | |
| From the dark green thy yellow circles burst. | |
| |
| Then think I of deep shadows on the grass; | |
| Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze, | |
| Where, as the breezes pass, | 30 |
| The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways; | |
| Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass, | |
| Or whiten in the wind; of waters blue, | |
| That from the distance sparkle through | |
| Some woodland gap; and of a sky above, | 35 |
| Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move. | |
| |
| My childhood’s earliest thoughts are linked with thee; | |
| The sight of thee calls back the robin’s song, | |
| Who, from the dark old tree | |
| Beside the door, sang clearly all day long; | 40 |
| And I, secure in childish piety, | |
| Listened as if I heard an angel sing | |
| With news from heaven, which he did bring | |
| Fresh every day to my untainted ears, | |
| When birds and flowers and I were happy peers. | 45 |
| |
| How like a prodigal doth nature seem | |
| When thou, for all thy gold, so common art! | |
| Thou teachest me to deem | |
| More sacredly of every human heart, | |
| Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam | 50 |
| Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show, | |
| Did we but pay the love we owe, | |
| And with a child’s undoubting wisdom look | |
| On all these living pages of God’s book. | |
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