The Flowers

All the names I know from nurse: 

Gardener's garters, Shepherd's purse, 

Bachelor's buttons, Lady's smock, 

And the Lady Hollyhock. 

Fairy places, fairy things, 

Fairy woods where the wild bee wings, 

Tiny trees for tiny dames-- 

These must all be fairy names! 

Tiny woods below whose boughs 

Shady fairies weave a house; 

Tiny tree-tops, rose or thyme, 

Where the braver fairies climb! 

Fair are grown-up people's trees, 

But the fairest woods are these; 

Where, if I were not so tall, 

I should live for good and all.

~ Robert Louis Stevenson

The Wild Flower's Song

As I wandered the forest,

The green leaves among,

I heard a Wild Flower

Singing a song.

'I slept in the earth

In the silent night,

I murmured my fears

And I felt delight.

'In the morning I went

As rosy as morn,

To seek for new joy;

But oh! met with scorn.'

~ William Blake

Ah! Sunflower!

Ah Sun-flower! weary of time.

Who countest the steps of the Sun;

Seeking after that sweet golden clime

Where the travellers journey is done.

Where the Youth pined away with desire,

And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow:

Arise from their graves and aspire.

Where my Sun-flower wishes to go.

~ William Blake

Leaves Compared with Flowers

A tree's leaves may be ever so good,

So may its bar, so may its wood;

But unless you put the right thing to its root

It never will show much flower or fruit.

But I may be one who does not care

Ever to have tree bloom or bear.

Leaves for smooth and bark for rough,

Leaves and bark may be tree enough.

Some giant trees have bloom so small

They might as well have none at all.

Late in life I have come on fern.

Now lichens are due to have their turn.

I bade men tell me which in brief,

Which is fairer, flower or leaf.

They did not have the wit to say,

Leaves by night and flowers by day.

Leaves and bar, leaves and bark,

To lean against and hear in the dark.

Petals I may have once pursued.

Leaves are all my darker mood.

~ Robert Frost

Wind and Window Flowers

LOVERS, forget your love,

And list to the love of these,

She a window flower,

And he a winter breeze.

When the frosty window veil

Was melted down at noon,

And the cagèd yellow bird

Hung over her in tune,

He marked her through the pane,

He could not help but mark,

And only passed her by,

To come again at dark.

He was a winter wind,

Concerned with ice and snow,

Dead weeds and unmated birds,

And little of love could know.

But he sighed upon the sill,

He gave the sash a shake,

As witness all within

Who lay that night awake.

Perchance he half prevailed

To win her for the flight

From the firelit looking-glass

And warm stove-window light.

But the flower leaned aside

And thought of naught to say,

And morning found the breeze

A hundred miles away.

~ Robert Frost