Destroyers and Other Verses/When the Copse is Grey With Bud

by Henry Head

 

When the copse is grey with bud,
And spring is surging in my blood,
Year by year beneath the hill
I sought a simple for my ill.

Blushing at a word o'erbold,
Praying when the world seemed cold,
Loveliest of flowers to me
Was the wood anemone.

On simple homely cares intent,
A spring of passive self-content
Led me where among the kine
Gleams the golden celandine.

Yellow primroses that vie
With the dawn tints of the sky;
Violets with a joyous sense
Of hidden, scented opulence;

Palm that on a leafless tree
Flowers foretelling Calvary,
Each has caught a fleeting mood
Of my budding womanhood.

Doomed a maid to dwell apart,
Within my solitary heart,
When bitter milk-streams upward surge,
I go to pluck the woodland spurge.