Bohemian Poems, Ancient and Modern/Forget-me-nots

by Václav Jaromír Picek

FORGET-ME-NOTS.

 

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OF all the flowers that Vesna^[1] waketh,
When glad return in love she maketh,
Forget-me-nots to me are dear,
To kiss and kiss from year to year.

O fondly them the gard’ner dresses,
Clips the wild grass that round them presses,
At morn and eve doth water bring,
And blesses them, as up they spring.

Their blossom is my dearest joy,
My youthful cares did they employ,
My heart’s the soil wherein they grow,
Their moisture—streaming tears that flow.

The gard’ner, he is Time gone by,
In which the youth dream’d pleasantly,
The garden-lands of Slawa’s race,
All which my feelings warm embrace.

To ev’ry pleasure of my fate
One of these flowers is consecrate,
And all forget-me-nots of mine
Around a linden^[2] spray I twine.

 

1. Vesna, the Slavonic goddess of Spring.
2. The linden was the sacred tree of the Slavonic Mythology, and is now regarded as the symbol of patriotism.

 

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