INTERCEDES WITH THE QUEEN OF FLOWERS FOR THE MERITED RECOGNITION OF CLOVER Hymned down the years from ages far, The theme of lover, seer, and king, Reign endless, Rose! for fair you are, Nor heaven reserves a fairer thing. To elfin ears the bell-flowers chime Your beauty, Queen, your fame; Your titles, blown thro' Ariel's clime, Thronged trumpet-flowers proclaim. Not less with me, a groundling, bear, Here bold for once, by nature shy: -- If votaries yours be everywhere, And flattering you the laureats vie, -- Meekness the more your heart should share. O Rose, we plants are all akin, Our roots enlock; Each strives to win The ampler space, the balmier air. But beauty, plainness, shade, and sun -- Here share-and-share-alike is none! And, ranked with grass, a flower may dwell, Cheerful, if never high in feather, With pastoral sisters thriving well In bloom that shares the broader weather; Charmful, mayhap, in simple grace, A lowlier Eden mantling in her face. My Queen, so all along I lie, But creep I can, scarce win your eye. But, O, your garden-wall peer over, And, if you blush, 'twill barely be At owning kin with Cousin Clover Who winsome makes the low degree. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE HOUSEKEEPER by ROBERT FROST BINSEY POPLARS (FELLED 1879) by GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS THE PLEASED CAPTIVE; A SONG by PHILIP AYRES THE COMPLAINT OF POETIE, FOR THE DEATH OF LIBERALITE by RICHARD BARNFIELD |