Pull the Primrose, Sister Anne !
Pull as many as you can.
Here are Daisies, take your fill;
Pansies, and the Cuckow-flower : Of the lofty Daffodil
Make your bed, and make your bower; Fill your lap, and fill your bosom ; Only spare the Strawberry-blossom!
Primroses, the Spring may love them-Summer knows but little of them:
Violets, do what they will,
Wither'd on the ground must lie;
Daisies will be daisies still;
Daisies they must live and die: Fill your lap, and fill your bosom, Only spare the Strawberry-blossom!
There is a change-and I am poor; Your Love hath been, nor long ago, A Fountain at my fond Heart's door, Whose only business was to flow; And flow it did; not taking heed Of its own bounty, or my need.
What happy moments did I count ! Bless'd was I then all bliss above! Now, for this consecrated Fount
Of murmuring, sparkling, living love, What have I ? shall I dare to tell?
A comfortless, and hidden WELL.
A Well of love-it may be deep- I trust it is, and never dry:
What matter? if the Waters sleep In silence and obscurity.
-Such change, and at the very door
Of my fond Heart, hath made me poor.
I am not One who much or oft delight To season my fireside with personal talk, About Friends, who live within an easy walk, Or Neighbours, daily, weekly, in my sight: And, for my chance-acquaintance, Ladies bright, Sons, Mothers, Maidens withering on the stalk, These all wear out of me, like Forms, with chalk Painted on rich men's floors, for one feast-night. Better than such discourse doth silence long, Long, barren silence, square with my desire; To sit without emotion, hope, or aim,
By my half-kitchen my half-parlour fire, And listen to the flapping of the flame, Or kettle, whispering it's faint undersong.
"Yet life," you say, "is life; we have seen and see,
And with a living pleasure we describe;
And fits of sprightly malice do but bribe
The languid mind into activity.
Sound sense, and love itself, and mirth and glee, Are foster'd by the comment and the gibe." Even be it so: yet still among your tribe,
Our daily world's true Worldlings, rank not me! Children are blest, and powerful; their world lies More justly balanced; partly at their feet, And part far from them :-sweetest melodies Are those that are by distance made more sweet; Whose mind is but the mind of his own eyes He is a Slave; the meanest we can meet!
Wings have we, and as far as we can go We may find pleasure: wilderness and wood, Blank ocean and mere sky, support that mood Which with the lofty sanctifies the low:
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