A Song Of Poppies

I love red poppies! Imperial red poppies!
Sun-worshippers are they;
Gladly as trees live through a hundred summers
They live one little day.

I love red poppies! Impassioned scarlet poppies!
Ever their strange perfume
Seems like an essence brewed by fairy people
From an immortal bloom.

I love red poppies! Red, silken, swaying poppies!
Deep in their hearts they keep
A magic cure for woe - a draught of Lethe -
A lotus-gift of sleep.

I love red poppies! Soft silver-stemmed, red poppies,
That from the rain and sun
Gather a balm to heal some earth-born sorrow,
When their glad day is done.

Virna Sheard

Virna Sheard was a Canadian poet and novelist associated with the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She gained recognition for her poetry collections such as 'The Miracle, and Other Poems' and 'A Sea of Sunset'. Her work often explored themes of love, spirituality, and the natural world. Apart from poetry, she also wrote several novels that contributed significantly to Canadian literature of her time.

Virna Sheard

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Jean De Breboeuf

Virna Sheard, Simple Poetry

English

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Sonnet LXXI. To The Poppy.

While Summer Roses all their glory yield
    To crown the Votary of Love and Joy,
    Misfortune's Victim hails, with many a sigh,
    Thee, scarlet POPPY of the pathless field,
Gaudy, yet wild and lone; no leaf to shield
    Thy flaccid vest, that, as the gale blows high,
    Flaps, and alternate folds around thy head. -
    So stands in the long grass a love-craz'd Maid,
Smiling aghast; while stream to every wind
    Her gairish ribbons, smear'd with dust and rain;
    But brain-sick visions cheat her tortur'd mind,
And bring false peace. Thus, lulling grief and pain,
    Kind dreams oblivious from thy juice proceed,
    THOU FLIMSY, SHEWY, MELANCHOLY WEED.

Anna Seward

Poppies

These are the flowers of sleep
That nod in the heavy noon,
Ere the brown shades eastward creep
To a drowsy and dreamful tune,
These are the flowers of sleep.

Loves lilies are passion-pale,
But these on the sun-kissed flood
Of the corn, that rolls breast deep,
Burn redder than drops of blood
On a dead kings golden mail.

Hearts dearest, I would that we
These blooms of forgetfulness
Might bind on our brows, and steep
Our love in Lethe ere less
Grow its flame with thee or me.

When Time with his evil eye
The beautiful Love has slain,
There is nought to gain or keep
Thereafter, and all is vain.
Should we wait to see Love die?

Sweetheart, of the joys men reap
We have reaped; tis time to rest.
Why should we wak...

Victor James Daley

A Song Of Roses

'Tis time to sing of roses: of roses all ablow,
To every vagrant passing breeze they dip a courtesy low,
'Tis time to sing of roses! for June is here, you know.

One song for true love's roses of sweetest deepest red,
Some heart will wear you faithfully when life itself hath fled,
And for the white rose sing a song - the white rose for the dead.

And ah! the yellow roses, of brightest, lightest gold,
King Midas must have touched their leaves in mystic days of old,
Or they were made of sunshine, and gilded, fold by fold.

And the roadside rose, sweet-briar, we would remember thee
And the cinnamon rose that evermore enthralls each passing bee,
You old, old-fashioned roses, a-growing wild and free.

'Tis time to sing of roses! of roses all ablow!
They come a...

Virna Sheard

Lilacs

In lonely gardens deserted - unseen -
Oh! lovely lilacs of purple and white,
You are dipping down through a mist of green;
For the morning sun's delight.
And the velvet bee, all belted with black,
Drinks deep of the wine which your flagons hold,
Clings close to your plumes while he fills his pack
With a load of burnished gold.

You hide the fences with blossoms of snow,
And sweeten the shade of castle towers;
Over low, grey gables you brightly blow,
Like amethysts turned to flowers.
The tramp on the highway - ragged and bold -
Wears you close to his heart with jaunty air;
You rest in my lady's girdle of gold,
And are held against her hair.

In God's own acre your tender flowers,
Bend down to the grasses and seem to sigh
For those who count ...

Virna Sheard

O Come To The Meadows.

O come to the meadows! I'll show you where
    Primrose and violet blow,
And the hawthorn spreads its blossoms fair,
    White as the driven snow.
I'll show you where the daisies dot
    With silver stars the lea,
The orchis, and forget-me-not,
    The flower of memory!

The gold-cup and the meadow-sweet,
    That love the river's side,
The reed that bows the wave to meet,
    And sighs above the tide.
The stately flag that gaily rears
    Aloft its yellow crest,
The lily in whose cup the tears
    Of morn delight to rest.

The first in Nature's dainty wreath,
    We'll cull the brier-rose,
The crowfoot and the purple heath,
    And pink that sweetly blows.
The hare-bell with its airy flowers
    Shall deck my Laura's breast,...

Susanna Moodie

The Tell-Tale Flowers

And has the Spring's all glorious eye
No lesson to the mind?
The birds that cleave the golden sky--
Things to the earth resigned--
Wild flowers that dance to every wind--
Do they no memory leave behind?

Aye, flowers! The very name of flowers,
That bloom in wood and glen,
Brings Spring to me in Winter's hours,
And childhood's dreams again.
The primrose on the woodland lea
Was more than gold and lands to me.

The violets by the woodland side
Are thick as they could thrive;
I've talked to them with childish pride
As things that were alive:
I find them now in my distress--
They seem as sweet, yet valueless.

The cowslips on the meadow lea,
How have I run for them!
I looked with wild and childish glee
Upon each golden gem:

John Clare