Wayside Weeds

The windflower blooms in yonder bower
All heedless of to-morrow’s storm,
Nor trembles for the coming shower
The lily’s stately form.

No busy shuttle plied to deck
With sunset tints the blushing rose,
And little does the harebell reck
Of toil and all its woes.

The water-lily, pure and white,
Floats idle on the summer stream,
Seeming almost too fair and bright
For aught but Poet’s dream.

The gorgeous tulip, though arrayed
In gold and gems, knows naught of care,
The violet in the mossy glade
Of labour has no share.

They toil not – yet the lily’s dyes
Phœnicean fabrics far surpass,
Nor India’s rarest gem out-vies
The little blue-eyed grass.

For God’s own hand hath clothed the flowers
With fairy form and rainbow hue,
Hath nurtured them with summer showers
And watered them with dew.

To-day, a thousand blossoms fair,
From sunny slope and sheltered glade,
With grateful incense fill the air —
To-morrow they shall fade.

But thou shalt live when sinks in night
Yon glorious sun, and shall not He
Who hath the flowers so richly dight,
Much rather care for thee?

O, faithless murmurer, thou may’st read
A lesson in the lowly sod,
Heaven will supply thine utmost need,
Fear not, but trust in God.

    1865.

The Skunk Cabbage

“Along the oozing margins of swampy streams, where Spring seems to detach the sluggish ice from the softening mud, the Skunk Cabbage is boldly announcing nature’s revival. Handsome, vigorous and strong, richly coloured in purple, with delicate.. markings of yellow, it rises.. a pointed bulb-like flower, as large as a lemon… Even its devoted admirers, who seek it as the earliest of all the awakening flowers, feel constrained to apologise for the odour it exhales.” – S. T. Wood, in The Globe.

The soft south wind hath kissed the earth
That long a widowed bride hath been;
And she begins in tearful mirth,
To weave herself a robe of green.
The budding spray
On maples grey
Proclaims the quick approaching spring;
And brooks their new-found freedom sing.

Green is the moss in yonder glade
On cedars old that loves to grow;
And, underneath the pine tree’s shade,
The wintergreen peeps through the snow.
The fields no more
With frost are hoar;
But not a flower doth yet appear
In glade or wood or meadow sere.

The earth within her sheltering breast
The pale hepatica doth hide;
The bloodroot and wake-robin rest
In quiet slumber side by side;
The violet
Is sleeping yet;
And still the sweet spring-beauty lies
Beyond the reach of longing eyes.

But look! beside the silent stream,
Beneath the alders brown and bare,
What is it shines with purple gleam
’Mid withered leaves that moulder there?
I know thee well,
But may not tell
Thy name. Yet I rejoice to meet thee,
And from my heart, old friend, I greet thee!

The lily hangs her dainty head
To hear her charms so loudly sung;
The rose doth blush a deeper red
To know her praise on every tongue.
But no kind word
Is ever heard
Of thee: The poets all reject thee,
The vulgar scorn thee or neglect thee.

And yet I love thee. Thou dost bring
To me a thousand visions bright
Of joyous birds that soon will sing
Among the hawthorn blossoms white;