London Types - XII. Flower-Girl

There's never a delicate nurseling of the year
But our huge LONDON hails it, and delights
To wear it on her breast or at her ear,
Her days to colour and make sweet her nights.
Crocus and daffodil and violet,
Pink, primrose, valley-lily, clove-carnation,
Red rose and white rose, wall-flower, mignonette,
The daisies all - these be her recreation,
Her gaudies these!    And forth from DRURY LANE,
Trapesing in any of her whirl of weathers,
Her flower-girls foot it, honest and hoarse and vain,
All boot and little shawl and wilted feathers:
Of populous corners right advantage taking,
And, where they squat, endlessly posy-making.

William Ernest Henley

William Ernest Henley was an English poet, critic, and editor. Despite battling tuberculosis from a young age, Henley is best known for his resilience and strength, qualities exemplified in his most famous poem, 'Invictus'. Henley was also a notable figure in the literary circles of his time, befriending and influencing key writers, such as Robert Louis Stevenson, who modeled the character Long John Silver after him.

William Ernest Henley

The Spring, My Dear

William Ernest Henley, Simple Poetry

In Fisherrow

William Ernest Henley, Simple Poetry

Rhymes And Rhythms - VIII

William Ernest Henley, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

London Types - XIII. Barmaid

Though, if you ask her name, she says ELISE,
Being plain ELIZABETH, e'en let it pass,
And own that, if her aspirates take their ease,
She ever makes a point, in washing glass,
Handling the engine, turning taps for tots,
And countering change, and scorning what men say,
Of posing as a dove among the pots,
Nor often gives her dignity away.
Her head's a work of art, and, if her eyes
Be tired and ignorant, she has a waist;
Cheaply the Mode she shadows; and she tries
From penny novels to amend her taste;
And, having mopped the zinc for certain years,
And faced the gas, she fades and disappears.
The Artist muses at his ease,
Contented that his work is done,
And smiling - smiling! - as he sees
His crowd collecting, one by one.
Alas! his travail's but begun!...

William Ernest Henley

London Types - VII. 'Lady'

Time, the old humourist, has a trick to-day
Of moving landmarks and of levelling down,
Till into Town the Suburbs edge their way,
And in the Suburbs you may scent the Town.
With MOUNT ST. thus approaching MUSWELL HILL,
And CLAPHAM COMMON marching with the MILE,
You get a HAMMERSMITH that fills the bill,
A HAMPSTEAD with a serious sense of style.
So this fair creature, pictured in THE ROW,
As one of that 'gay adulterous world,' {79} whose round
Is by the SERPENTINE, as well would show,
And might, I deem, as readily be found
On STREATHAM'S HILL, or WIMBLEDON'S, or where
Brixtonian kitchens lard the late-dining air.

William Ernest Henley

Flowers

The daisy scatter'd on each mead and down,
A golden tuft within a silver crown;
(Fair fall that dainty flower! and may there be
No shepherd grac'd that doth not honour thee!)
The primrose, when with six leaves gotten grace
Maids as a true-love in their bosoms place;
The spotless lily, by whose pure leaves be
Noted the chaste thoughts of virginity;
Carnations sweet with colour like the fire,
The fit impresas for inflam'd desire;
The harebell for her stainless azur'd hue
Claims to be worn of none but those are true;
The rose, like ready youth, enticing stands,
And would be cropp'd if it might choose the hands,
The yellow kingcup Flora them assign'd
To be the badges of a jealous mind;
The orange-tawny marigold: the night
Hides not her colour from a searching...

William Browne

The Old English Garden - A Floral Phantasy

In an old world garden dreaming,
Where the flowers had human names,
Methought, in fantastic seeming,
They disported as squires and dames.

Of old in Rosamond's Bower,
With it's peacock hedges of yew,
One could never find the flower
Unless one was given the clue;
So take the key of the wicket,
Who would follow my fancy free,
By formal knot and clipt thicket,
And smooth greensward so fair to see

And while Time his scythe is whetting,
Ere the dew from the grass has gone,

The Four Seasons' flight forgetting,
As they dance round the dial stone;

With a leaf from an old English book,
A Jonquil will serve for a pen.

Let us note from the green arbour's nook,
Flowers masking like women and men.


FIRST in VENUS'...

Walter Crane

Coltsfoot And Larkspur Speedwell

In the race of the flowers that's run due,

As the HARTSTONGUE pants at the well

And the HOUNDSTONGUE laps the SUNDEW.

Here's VENUS'-COMBE for MAIDENHAIR:
While KING-CUPS drink BELLA-DONNA,

Glad in purple and gold so fair,
Though the DEADLY NIGHTSHADE'S upon her.

Behold LONDON PRIDE robed & crowned,
Ushered in by the GOLDEN ROD,
While a floral crowd press around,
Just to win from her crest a nod.

The FOXGLOVES are already on.
Not only in pairs but dozens;
They've come out to see all the fun,
With sisters and aunts and cousins.

The STITCHWORK looked up with a sigh
At BATCHELOR'S BUTTONS unsewn:

Single Daisies were not in her eye,
For the grass was just newly mown.

The HORSE-TAIL, 'scaped fr...

Walter Crane

Spring In Town.

The country ever has a lagging Spring,
Waiting for May to call its violets forth,
And June its roses, showers and sunshine bring,
Slowly, the deepening verdure o'er the earth;
To put their foliage out, the woods are slack,
And one by one the singing-birds come back.

Within the city's bounds the time of flowers
Comes earlier. Let a mild and sunny day,
Such as full often, for a few bright hours,
Breathes through the sky of March the airs of May,
Shine on our roofs and chase the wintry gloom,
And lo! our borders glow with sudden bloom.

For the wide sidewalks of Broadway are then
Gorgeous as are a rivulet's banks in June,
That overhung with blossoms, through its glen,
Slides soft away beneath the sunny noon,
And they who search the untrodden wood for f...

William Cullen Bryant