Cyclamen

I had a plant which would not thrive,
    Although I watered it with care,
    I could not save the blossoms fair,
Nor even keep the leaves alive.

I strove till it was vain to strive.
    I gave it light, I gave it air,
    I sought from skill and counsel rare
The means to make it yet survive.

A lady sent it me, to prove
    She held my friendship in esteem;
            I would not have it as she said,
I wanted it to be for love;
    And now not even friends we seem,
            And now the cyclamen is dead.

Robert Fuller Murray

Robert Fuller Murray was a Scottish poet known for his lyrical and expressive poetry. Born on December 26, 1863, in Roxbury, Massachusetts, he moved to Scotland at a young age. Despite a short life, ending on April 15, 1894, Murray left a significant mark with his works, which often reflected themes of nature and human emotion. His poetry is characterized by its elegance and depth of feeling. Murray's influence remained through posthumous publications and collections of his poetry.

Robert Fuller Murray

The Solitary

Robert Fuller Murray, Simple Poetry

A Ballad Of The Town Water

Robert Fuller Murray, Simple Poetry

Reflections Of A Magistrand. On Returning To St. Andrews

Robert Fuller Murray, Simple Poetry

Where's The Use

Robert Fuller Murray, Simple Poetry

English

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To A Cyclamen

I come to visit thee agen,
My little flowerless cyclamen;
To touch the hand, almost to press,
That cheerd thee in thy loneliness.
What could thy careful guardian find
Of thee in form, of me in mind,
What is there in us rich or rare,
To make us claim a moments care?
Unworthy to be so carest,
We are but withering leaves at best.

Walter Savage Landor

Companion To The Foregoing

Never enlivened with the liveliest ray
That fosters growth or checks or cheers decay,
Nor by the heaviest rain-drops more deprest,
This Flower, that first appeared as summer's guest,
Preserves her beauty 'mid autumnal leaves
And to her mournful habits fondly cleaves.
When files of stateliest plants have ceased to bloom,
One after one submitting to their doom,
When her coevals each and all are fled,
What keeps her thus reclined upon her lonesome bed?

The old mythologists, more impressed than we
Of this late day by character in tree
Or herb, that claimed peculiar sympathy,
Or by the silent lapse of fountain clear,
Or with the language of the viewless air
By bird or beast made vocal, sought a cause
To solve the mystery, not in Nature's laws
But in Man'...

William Wordsworth

An Easter Flower.

I.

The flower that she gave to me
    Has withered now and died--
But yet with fond fidelity
    Its faded leaves abide.


II.

The petals that so fragrant then
    She wore upon her breast--
Still clinging to the lifeless stem,
    With miser care possessed.


III.

As when in sweetest purity
    It shed its perfume rare,
A symbol dear 'twill ever be
    Of one divinely fair!


IV.

Plucked by the cruel hand of Death
    In beauty's youthful bloom--
She perished with his chilling breath,
    And withered in the tomb.


V.

But I will cherish ever thus
    The token that she gave
When sun-lit skies were over us,
    Unclouded by the grave!

George W. Doneghy

To ..........

In vain, sweet Maid! for me you bring
The first-blown blossoms of the spring;
My tearful cheek you wipe in vain,
And bid its pale rose bloom again.

In vain! unconscious, did I say?
Oh! you alone these tears can stay:
Alone, the pale rose can renew,
Whose sunshine is a smile for you.

Yet not in friendship's smile it lives;
Too cold the gifts that friendship gives:
The beam that warms a winter's day,
Plays coldly in the lap of may.

You bid my sad heart cease to swell;
But will you, if its tale I tell,
Nor turn away, nor frown the while,
But smile, as you were wont to smile?

Then bring me not the blossoms young,
That erst on Flora's forehead hung;
But round thy radiant temples twine,
The flowers whose flaunting mocks at mine...

Thomas Gent

She Dearly Loved The Flowers

I saw her first when she was old,
Her form devoid of grace;
Her locks that once were yellow gold
Were white, and on her face
Were furrows deep, which told of pain,
And toil, and worldly fret,
Which all, alas, had been in vain,
But nature claimed the debt.

Her eyes were gray and lacked in glow,
Her voice some thought was gruff,
And when excited was not slow
To use a sharp rebuff;
For she in speech was free from art;
Men feared her verbal stroke,
And yet they said, "She has a heart;
She never wears a cloak."

Her creed, perhaps, was heterodox,
If creed she ever had.
She knew far more of pans and crocks,
But this was not her fad;
Her light, I fear, did not shine out
In pious talk and airs,
In fact I entertain a doubt
...

Joseph Horatio Chant

For A Present Of Roses

Crimson and cream and white--
    My room is a garden of roses!
Centre and left and right,
    Three several splendid posies.

As the sender is, they are sweet,
    These lovely gifts of your sending,
With the stifling summer heat
    Their delicate fragrance blending.

What more can my heart desire?
    Has it lost the power to be grateful?
Is it only a burnt-out fire,
    Whose ashes are dull and hateful?

Yet still to itself it doth say,
    'I should have loved far better
To have found, coming in to-day,
    The merest scrap of a letter.'

Robert Fuller Murray