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 5 
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 — 
