To the Same Flower

Pleasures newly found are sweet

When they lie about our feet:

February last, my heart

First at sight of thee was glad;

All unheard of as thou art,

Thou must needs, I think, have had,

Celandine! and long ago,

Praise of which I nothing know.

I have not a doubt but he,

Whosoe'er the man might be,

Who the first with pointed rays

(Workman worthy to be sainted)

Set the sign-board in a blaze,

When the rising sun he painted,

Took the fancy from a glance

At thy glittering countenance.

Soon as gentle breezes bring

News of winter's vanishing,

And the children build their bowers,

Sticking 'kerchief-plots of mould

All about with full-blown flowers,

Thick as sheep in shepherd's fold!

With the proudest thou art there,

Mantling in the tiny square.

Often have I sighed to measure

By myself a lonely pleasure,

Sighed to think, I read a book

Only read, perhaps, by me;

Yet I long could overlook

Thy bright coronet and Thee,

And thy arch and wily ways,

And thy store of other praise.

Blithe of heart, from week to week

Thou dost play at hide-and-seek;

While the patient primrose sits

Like a beggar in the cold,

Thou, a flower of wiser wits,

Slipp'st into thy sheltering hold;

Liveliest of the vernal train

When ye all are out again.

Drawn by what peculiar spell,

By what charm of sight or smell,

Does the dim-eyed curious Bee,

Labouring for her waxen cells,

Fondly settle upon Thee

Prized above all buds and bells

Opening daily at thy side,

By the season multiplied?

Thou art not beyond the moon,

But a thing "beneath our shoon:"

Let the bold Discoverer thrid

In his bark the polar sea;

Rear who will a pyramid;

Praise it is enough for me,

If there be but three or four

Who will love my little Flower.