130 
THE POETRY OF FLOWERS 
And wearily at length should fare ; 
He need but look about, and there 
Thou art! — a friend at hand, to scare 
His melancholy. 
A hundred times, by rock or bower, 
Ere thus I have lain couched an hour, 
Have I derived from thy sweet power 
Some apprehension; 
Some steady love; some brief delight; 
Some memory that had taken flight; 
Some charm of fancy, wrong or right; 
Or stray invention. 
If stately passions in me burn, 
And one chance look to thee should turn, 
I drink out of an humble urn 
A lowlier pleasure; 
The homely sympathy that heeds 
The common life our nature breeds 
A wisdom fitted to the needs 
Of hearts at leisure. 
When, smitten by the morning ray, 
I see thee rise, alert and gay, 
Then, cheerful flower! my spirits play 
With kindred gladness; 
And when, at dusk, by dews oppressed, 
Thou sinkst, the image of thy rest 
Hath often eased my pensive breast 
Of careful sadness. 
And all day long I number yet, 
All seasons through, another debt, 
Which I, wherever thou art met, 
To thee am owing; 
An instinct call it, a blind sense, 
A happy genial influence, 
Coming, one knows not how, or whence, 
Nor whither going. 
Child of the year ! that round dost run 
Thy course, bold lover of the sun, 
And cheerful, when the day’s begun, 
As morning leveret — 
