The Poetry of Flowers. 
5 1 
And left with its spoiler a smart from that hour, 
A pain for ever abiding; 
Little Rose, little Rose, little red Rose, 
Among the bushes hiding ! 
WILD FLOWERS. 
BY SHELLEY. 
I DREAMED that, as I wandered by the way, 
Bare Winter suddenly was changed to Spring, 
And gentle odours led my steps astray, 
Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring 
Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay 
Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling 
Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, 
But kissed it and then fled, as thou might’st in a 
dream. 
There grew pied Wind-flowers and Violets, 
Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth, 
The constellated flower that never sets ; 
Faint Oxlips ; tender Blue-bells, at whose birth 
The sod scarce heaved ; and that tall flower that wets 
Its mother’s face with heaven-collected tears, 
When the low wind, its playmate’s voice, it hears. 
And in the warm hedge grew lush Eglantine, 
Green Cowbind and the moonlight-coloured May, 
And cherry blossoms, and white cups, whose wine 
Was the bright dew yet drained not by the day ; 
And Wild Roses, and Ivy serpentine, 
With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray, 
And flowers azure, black, and streaked with gold, 
Fairer than any wakened eyes behold. 
