Wild Flower Poetry

Wildlife / Yorkshire Dialect

Wild Flower Poetry

A Tale

Edward Thomas

There once the walls
Of the ruined cottage stood.
The Periwinkle crawls
With flowers in its hair into the wood.

In flowerless hours
Never will the bank fail,
With everlasting flowers
On fragments of blue plates, to tell the tale.

A Widow’s Weeds

Walter De La Mare

A poor old widow in her weeds,
Sowed her garden with wild-flower seeds,
Not too shallow, and not too deep,
And down came April drip-drip-drip.
Up shone May, like gold, and soon
Green as an arbour grew leafy June.
And now all Summer she sits and sews
Where willow herb, comfrey, bugloss blows,
Teasle and tansy, meadowsweet,
Campion, toadflax, and rough hawksbit,
Brown bee orchid, and Peals of Bells,
Clover, burnet, and thyme she smells,
Like Oberon’s meadows her garden is
Drowsy from dawn till dusk with bees.
Weeps she never, but sometimes sighs,
And peeps at her garden with bright brown eyes,
A poor old Widow in her weeds.

Tall Nettles

Edward Thomas

Tall nettles cover up, as they have done
These many Springs, the rusty harrow, the plough
Long worn out, and the roller made of stone:
Only the elm butt tops the nettles now.

This corner of the farmyard I like most:
As well as any bloom upon a flower
I like the dust on the nettles, never lost
Except to prove the sweetness of a shower.

At the age of sixteen, if we may trust the account given by his Friend Mr. Octavius Gilchrist, in the "London Magazine" for January, 1820,
John Clare composed the following sonnet;

"To a Primrose":--

Welcome, pale primrose, starting up between
Dead matted leaves of oak and ash, that strew
The every lawn, the wood, and spinney through,
'Mid creeping moss and ivy's darker green!
How much thy presence beautifies the ground!
How sweet thy modest, unaffected pride
Glows on the sunny bank and wood's warm side!
And where thy fairy flowers in groups are found
The schoolboy roams enchantedly along,
Plucking the fairest with a rude delight,
While the meek shepherd stops his simple song,
To gaze a moment on the pleasing sight,
O'er joyed to see the flowers that truly bring
The welcome news of sweet returning Spring.

Yorkshire Dialect