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Pansies

When the earliest south winds softly blow
Over the brown earth, and the waning snow
In the last days of the discrowned March,–
Before the silver tassels of the larch,
Or any tiniest bud or blade is seen;
Or in the woods the faintest kindling green,
And all the earth is veiled in azure mist,
Waiting the far-off kisses of the sun,–
They lift their bright heads shyly one by one.
And offer each, in cups of amethyst,
Drops of the honey wine of fairy land,–
A brimming beaker poised in either hand
Fit for the revels of King Oberon,
With all his royal gold and purple on:
Children of pensive thought and airy fancies,
Sweeter than any poet’s sweetest stanzas,
Though to the sound of eloquent music told,
Or by the lips of beauty breathed or sung:
They thrill us with their backward-looking glances,
They bring us to the land that ne’er grows old,–
They mind us of the days when life was young
Nor time had stolen the fire from youth’s romances,
Dear English pansies!

While still the hyacinth sleeps on securely,
And every lily leaf is folded purely,
Nor any purple crocus hath arisen;
Nor any tulip raised its slender stem,
And burst the earth-walls of its winter prison,
And donned its gold and jewelled diadem;
Nor by the brookside in the mossy hollow,
That calls to every truant foot to follow,
The cowslip yet hath hung its golden ball,–
In the wild and treacherous March weather,
The pansy and the sunshine come together,
The sweetest flower of all!
The sweetest flower that blows;
Sweeter than any rose,
Or that shy blossom opening in the night,
Its waxen vase of aromatic light–
A sleepy incense to the winking stars;
Nor yet in summer heats,
That crisp the city streets,–
Where the spiked mullein grows beside the bars
In country places, and the ox-eyed daisy
Blooms in the meadow grass, and brooks are lazy,
And scarcely murmur in the twinkling heat;
When sound of babbling water is so sweet,
Blue asters, and the purple orchis tall,
Bend o’er the wimpling wave together;–
The pansy blooms through all the summer weather,
The sweetest flower of all!

The sweetest flower that blows!
When all the rest are scattered and departed,
The symbol of the brave and faithful-hearted,
Her bright corolla glows.
When leaves hang pendant on their withered stalks,
Through all the half-deserted garden walks;
And through long autumn nights,
The merry dancers scale the northern heights,
And tiny crystal points of frost-white fire
Make brightly scintillant each blade and spire,
Still under shade of shelt’ring wall,
Or under winter’s shroud of snows,
Undimmed, the faithful pansy blows,
The sweetest flower of all!

Kate Seymour Maclean