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Green Things Growing

1461

All are at one now, roses and lovers,

Not known of the cliffs and the fields and the sea. Not a breath of the time that has been hovers

In the air now soft with a summer to be.

Not a breath shall there sweeten the seasons hereafter
Of the flowers or the lovers that laugh now or weep,
When, as they that are free now of weeping and laughter,
We shall sleep.

Here death may deal not again forever;

Here change may come not till all change end.

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From the graves they have made they shall rise up never,
Who have left naught living to ravage and rend.
Earth, stones, and thorns of the wild ground growing,
While the sun and the rain live, these shall be;
Till a last wind's breath, upon all these blowing,
Roll the sea.

Till the slow sea rise and the sheer cliff crumble,
Till terrace and meadow the deep gulfs drink,
Till the strength of the waves of the high tides humble
The fields that lessen, the rocks that shrink;

Here now in his triumph where all things falter,

Stretched out on the spoils that his own hand spread, As a god self-slain on his own strange altar,

Death lies dead.

Algernon Charles Swinburne [1837-1909]

GREEN THINGS GROWING

O THE green things growing, the green things growing,
The faint sweet smell of the green things growing!

I should like to live, whether I smile or grieve,

Just to watch the happy life of my green things growing.

O the fluttering and the pattering of those green things growing!

How they talk each to each, when none of us are knowing; In the wonderful white of the weird moonlight

Or the dim dreamy dawn when the cocks are crowing.

I love, I love them so-my green things growing!
And I think that they love me, without false showing;
For by many a tender touch, they comfort me so much,
With the soft mute comfort of green things growing.

And in the rich store of their blossoms glowing
Ten for one I take they're on me bestowing:
Oh, I should like to see, if God's will it may be,
Many, many a summer of my green things growing!

But if I must be gathered for the angel's sowing,
Sleep out of sight awhile, like the green things growing,
Though dust to dust return, I think I'll scarcely mourn,
If I may change into green things growing.

Dinah Maria Mulock Craik [1826-1887]

A CHANTED CALENDAR

From "Balder"

FIRST came the primrose,
On the bank high,

Like a maiden looking forth
From the window of a tower
When the battle rolls below,
So looked she,

And saw the storms go by.

Then came the wind-flower
In the valley left behind,
As a wounded maiden, pale
With purple streaks of woe,
When the battle has rolled by
Wanders to and fro,

So tottered she,

Dishevelled in the wind.

Then came the daisies,

On the first of May,

Like a bannered show's advance

Flowers

While the crowd runs by the way,

1463

With ten thousand flowers about them they came trooping through the fields.

As a happy people come,

So came they,

As a happy people come

When the war has rolled away,

With dance and tabor, pipe and drum,

And all make holiday.

Then came the cowslip,

Like a dancer in the fair,

She spread her little mat of green,

And on it danced she.

With a fillet bound about her brow,
A fillet round her happy brow,

A golden fillet round her brow,

And rubies in her hair.

FLOWERS

Sydney Dobell (1824-1874]

SPAKE full well, in language quaint and olden
One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine,
When he called the flowers, so blue and golden,
Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine.

Stars they are, wherein we read our history,

As astrologers and seers of eld;

Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery,
Like the burning stars, which they beheld.

Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous,
God hath written in those stars above;
But not less in the bright flowerets under us
Stands the revelation of his love.

Bright and glorious is that revelation,
Writ all over this great world of ours;
Making evident our own creation,

In these stars of earth, these golden flowers.

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And the Poet, faithful and far-secing,
Sees, alike in stars and flowers, a part
Of the self-same, universal being,

Which is throbbing in his brain and heart.

Gorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining,
Blossoms flaunting in the eye of day,
Tremulous leaves, with soft and silver lining,
Buds that open only to decay;

Brilliant hopes, all woven in gorgeous tissues,
Flaunting gayly in the golden light;
Large desires, with most uncertain issues,
Tender wishes, blossoming at night!

These in flowers and men are more than seeming; Workings are they of the self-same powers

Which the Poet, in no idle dreaming,

Seeth in himself and in the flowers.

Everywhere about us are they glowing,

Some like stars, to tell us Spring is born; Others, their blue eyes with tears o'erflowing, Stand like Ruth amid the golden corn;

Not alone in Spring's armorial bearing,
And in Summer's green-emblazoned field,
But in arms of brave old Autumn's wearing,
In the centre of his brazen shield;

Not alone in meadows and green alleys,
On the mountain-top, and by the brink
Of sequestered pools in woodland valleys,
Where the slaves of nature stoop to drink;

Not alone in her vast dome of glory,
Not on graves of bird and beast alone,
But in old cathedrals, high and hoary,
On the tombs of heroes, carved in stone;

Flowers

In the cottage of the rudest peasant;

In ancestral homes, whose crumbling towers, Speaking of the Past unto the Present,

Tell us of the ancient Games of Flowers;

In all places, then, and in all seasons,

1465

Flowers expand their light and soul-like wings,
Teaching us, by most persuasive reasons,
How akin they are to human things.

And with childlike, credulous affection,
We behold their tender buds expand;
Emblems of our own great resurrection,
Emblems of the bright and better land.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882]

FLOWERS

I WILL not have the mad Clytie,

Whose head is turned by the sun;

The tulip is a courtly quean,
Whom, therefore, I will shun:
The cowslip is a country wench,
The violet is a nun;-
But I will woo the dainty rose,
The queen of every one.

The pea is but a wanton witch,
In too much haste to wed,
And clasps her rings on every hand;
The wolfsbane I should dread;

Nor will I dreary rosemarye,

That always mourns the dead; But I will woo the dainty rose, With her cheeks of tender red.

The lily is all in white, like a saint,
And so is no mate for me;

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And the daisy's cheek is tipped with a blush,
She is of such low degree;

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