| |
|
There is a
Flower, the Lesser Celandine,
That shrinks, like many
more, from cold and rain;
And, the first moment that
the sun may shine,
Bright as the sun himself, 'tis
out again!
When hailstones have been falling,
swarm on swarm,
Or blasts the green field and the
trees distressed,
Oft have I seen it muffled up from
harm,
In close self-shelter, like a Thing at rest.
But lately, one rough day, this Flower I passed,
And recognized it, though an altered form,
Now
standing forth an offering to the blast,
And buffeted
at will by rain and storm.
I stopped, and said,
with inly-muttered voice,
"It doth not love the
shower, nor seek the cold:
This neither is its
courage nor its choice,
But its necessity in being
old.
"The sunshine may not cheer it, nor the dew;
It cannot help itself in its decay;
Stiff in its
members, withered, changed of hue."
And, in my
spleen, I smiled that it was grey.
To be a
Prodigal's Favourite -then, worse truth,
A Miser's
Pensioner -behold our lot!
O Man, that from thy fair
and shining youth
Age might but take the things Youth
needed not!
|
|
|
