Poems (Hoffman)/To My Pansies
TO MY PANSIES.
Pansies, your drooping, sleepy heads low bendingBeneath the gentle moon's transforming beams,While myriad stars their varied ways are wending, Tell me your dreams.
In deepest shades of yonder oak and willowThe breeze has rocked the baby-birds to sleep,While o'er your lowly fringed and dewy pillow Moonbeams and shadows creep.
Have you no dreams, with your shy, tender facesTurned from the silvery light,While on your heads a thousand airy graces Their forms unite?
Do no weird fancies, steeped in thought and feeling,That man with all his wisdom never guessed,Come through the shadowy moonlight softly stealing To charm your rest?
Ah! willful pansies, I would guess their meaningAnd steal some of their honeyed sweets away;But keep your pretty secrets, pansy dreaming, An elfin might betray.
On yonder hills the blushing Bride of MorningScatters the mists beneath her sunny smile;The few faint stars her cloudy robes adorning Your eyes beguile.
Awake, my pansies, choristers are singing,On golden wings their artless notes are borne;Lo! from your leafy buds in rapture springing Ye greet the morn.
Each tiny face wears some distinct expressionStamped in its royal dyes,Linked with a universal, shy confession Of sweet surprise.
Into the heavens your wondering eyes are staringAs if to penetrate their burning lampWhile mosses, round your feet, fresh dewdrops wearing, Lie cool and damp.
Into each beauteous face I gaze with pleasure,That no distrust attends;I find in you, what I have learned to treasure, Unchanging friends.
Sweet sympathy, that boon of earth's denying,That surest balm for care,Wafting from upper fonts your wants supplying, Ye sweetly share.
Ye are to me a silent inspirationWith voiceless teachings blent,I learn of you (though in the lowliest station) To be content.