Double Red Daisies

Double red daisies, they're my flowers,
Which nobody else may grow.
In a big quarrelsome house like ours
They try it sometimes, but no,
I root them up because they're my flowers,
Which nobody else may grow.

Claire has a tea-rose, but she didn't plant it;
Ben has an iris, but I don't want it.
Daisies, double red daisies for me,
The beautifulest flowers in the garden.

Double red daisy, that's my mark:
I paint it in all my books!
It's carved high up on the beech-tree bark,
How neat and lovely it looks!
So don't forget that it's my trade mark;
Don't copy it in your books.

Claire has a tea-rose, but she didn't plant it;
Ben has an iris, but I don't want it.
Daisies, double red daisies for me,
The beautifulest flowers in the garden.

Robert von Ranke Graves

Robert von Ranke Graves was a British poet, historical novelist, critic, and classicist. His father was Alfred Perceval Graves, a distinguished Irish poet and figure in the Gaelic revival. Known for his war poetry, love poems, and scholarly works, he created a lasting literary legacy, including his interpretations of the Greek myths. Graves was also a soldier in World War I, an experience that profoundly influenced his writing.

Robert von Ranke Graves

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Robert von Ranke Graves, Simple Poetry

English

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The March Nosegay

The bonny March morning is beaming
In mingled crimson and grey,
White clouds are streaking and creaming
The sky till the noon of the day;
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And grass hills below look the same;
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Here's two or three flowers for my fair one,
Wood primroses and celandine too;
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The sun shines about me so sweet,
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So where the blue violets are peeping,
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The Daisy.

    See where it stands, the world-appointed flower,
    Pure gold at centre, like the sun at noon, -
    A mimic sun to light a true-love bower
    For fair Queen Mab, now dead or in a swoon,
    Whom late a poet saw beneath the moon.
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    Well! I will follow suit, as best I may,
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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

To Mary

Mary, I love to sing
About the flowers of Spring,
For they resemble thee.
In the earliest of the year
Thy beauties will appear,
And youthful modesty.

Here's the daisy's silver rim,
With gold eye never dim,
Spring's earliest flower so fair.
Here the pilewort's golden rays
Set the cow green in a blaze,
Like the sunshine in thy hair.

Here's forget-me-not so blue;
Is there any flower so true?
Can it speak my happy lot?
When we courted in disguise
This flower I used to prize,
For it said "Forget-me-not."

Speedwell! And when we meet
In the meadow paths so sweet,
Where the flowers I gave to thee
All grew beneath the sun,
May thy gentle heart be won,
And I be blest with thee.

John Clare

My Neighbours Garden

Why in my neighbours garden
Are the flowers more sweet than mine?
I had never such bloom of roses,
Such yellow and pink woodbine.

Why in my neighbours garden
Are the fruits all red and gold,
While here the grapes are bitter
That hang for my fingers hold?

Why in my neighbours garden
Do the birds all fly to sing?
Over the fence between us
One would think twas always spring.

I thought my own wide garden
Once more sweet and fair than all,
Till I saw the gold and crimson
Just over my neighbours wall.

But now I want his thrushes,
And now I want his vine,
If I cannot have his cherries
That grow more red than mine.

The serpent neath his apples
Will tempt me to my fall,
And then-Ill steal my neighbour...

Dora Sigerson Shorter

I Pluck Summer Blossoms

I pluck Summer blossoms,
And think of rich bosoms--
The bosoms I've leaned on, and worshipped, and won.
The rich valley lilies,
The wood daffodillies,
Have been found in our rambles when Summer begun.

Where I plucked thee the bluebell,
'T was where the night dew fell,
And rested till morn in the cups of the flowers;
I shook the sweet posies,
Bluebells and brere roses,
As we sat in cool shade in Summer's warm hours.

Bedlam-cowslips and cuckoos,
With freck'd lip and hooked nose,
Growing safe near the hazel of thicket and woods,
And water blobs, ladies' smocks,
Blooming where haycocks
May be found, in the meadows, low places, and floods.

And cowslips a fair band
For May ball or garland,
That bloom in the meadows as seen by th...

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