3
As I have often done, high in the love
Of the young tyro of the spade and rake
Look at the eager joyousness and pride
With which the choicest of the little store
Are plucked and offered you. The reddest rose—
The tallest pink—and, treasure beyond all,
The matron daisy and her circling brood,
"The hen and chickens." How I love the glance
Of exultation that comes with the gift!
And wish, aye, from my very soul, that each
Young school-immured being could so learn
From Nature's glorious book her marv'lous works—
Pedants might lose their slaves, but worlds win men.
And are not Flowers the earliest gift of love?
Do they not, mutely eloquent, oft speak
For absent or for trembling hearts, and bear
Kisses and sighs on their perfumèd lips—
And worlds of thought and fancy in their leaves
Touched by the rainbow's dyes? Have ye ne'er prized
Some token-flower—an early rose—a bunch
Of young Spring's first and sweetest violets, culled
And given into yours by hands so dear,
That all Flowers seemed grown holier from that time?
Have ye ne'er hoarded such a simple gift—
Aye, through long years—e'en when each shrunken leaf
Bore not a semblance to the thing it was,
And the soft fragrance that had once been there
