My Pansy Pets

My pansy pets are sleeping well
Beneath their quilt of snow;
How they can breathe I cannot tell,
Nor how their rootlets grow;
But soon the snow will melt away
And April showers descend;
Then shall appear in colors gay
Each little pansy friend.

Of pride it may not show a trace;
Of lowly mind, alway;
But will not blush to show its face
All through the lifelong day:
Its fragrance other flowers surpass,
In form more stately, too.
But when you see my pets in mass,
Thank God they ever grew.

For though the human face may frown,
Or show a heart of guile,
My pansy pets as you look down
Will look at you and smile;
Nor will they murmur if you should
Pluck off their brightest bloom;
Their mission is to do us good,
And smile away our gloom.

Joseph Horatio Chant

Joseph Horatio Chant was a Canadian poet known for his religious and nature-inspired verse. He worked as a farmer and later became an ordained Methodist minister, which influenced his poetry. Chant's work gained modest recognition for its sincere exploration of faith and the Canadian landscape, contributing to the country's early literary heritage. He lived and wrote during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Joseph Horatio Chant

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English

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My Primrose

My sweet primrose with thy open face,
And with fringe-like leaves, without a trace
Of coarseness, either in flower or stem,
Among all my plants thou art the gem.

My lovely lilies soon disappear;
Thy bloom is constant through all the year;
In summer's heat and winter's cold,
Undimmed the light of thy floral gold.

Or if thy color be pink, or blue,
Or white as snow, thou art ever true;
My room is bright with thy smiling eyes,
And thy fragrance rare I also prize.

Thou hast done thy part, my little pet--
Let me keep thy roots forever wet,
But guard with care all thy tender leaves
And growing crown, which the earth-crust heaves.

Thou dost heaven-ward tend, aspiring high,
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Joseph Horatio Chant

Pansies.

When the earliest south winds softly blow
Over the brown earth, and the waning snow
In the last days of the discrowned March,--
Before the silver tassels of the larch,
Or any tiniest bud or blade is seen;
Or in the woods the faintest kindling green,
    And all the earth is veiled in azure mist,
Waiting the far-off kisses of the sun,--
They lift their bright heads shyly one by one.
    And offer each, in cups of amethyst,
Drops of the honey wine of fairy land,--
A brimming beaker poised in either hand
Fit for the revels of King Oberon,
With all his royal gold and purple on:
Children of pensive thought and airy fancies,
Sweeter than any poet's sweetest stanzas,
    Though to the sound of eloquent music told,
        Or by the lips of beauty breathed or sun...

Kate Seymour Maclean

Pansies

Tufted and bunched and ranged with careless art
Here, where the paving-stones are set apart,
Alert and gay and innocent of guile,
The little pansies nod their heads and smile.

With what a whispering and a lulling sound
They watch the children sport about the ground,
Longing, it seems, to join the pretty play
That laughs and runs the light-winged hours away.

And other children long ago there were
Who shone and played and made the garden fair,
To whom the pansies in their robes of white
And gold and purple gave a welcome bright.

Gone are those voices, but the others came.
Joyous and free, whose spirit was the same;
And other pansies, robed as those of old,
Peeped up and smiled in purple, white and gold.

For pansies are, I think, the littl...

R. C. Lehmann

The November Pansy

This is not June, - by Autumn's stratagem
Thou hast been ambushed in the chilly air;
Upon thy fragile crest virginal fair
The rime has clustered in a diadem;
The early frost
Has nipped thy roots and tried thy tender stem,
Seared thy gold petals, all thy charm is lost.

Thyself the only sunshine: in obeying
The law that bids thee blossom in the world
Thy little flag of courage is unfurled;
Inherent pansy-memories are saying
That there is sun,
That there is dew and colour and warmth repaying
The rain, the starlight when the light is done.

These are the gaunt forms of the hollyhocks
That shower the seeds from out their withered purses;
Here were the pinks; there the nasturtium nurses
The last of colour in her gaudy smocks;
The ruins yonder

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White Pansies

Day and night pass over, rounding,
Star and cloud and sun,
Things of drift and shadow, empty
Of my dearest one.

Soft as slumber was my baby,
Beaming bright and sweet;
Daintier than bloom or jewel
Were his hands and feet.

He was mine, mine all, mine only,
Mine and his the debt;
Earth and Life and Time are changers;
I shall not forget.

Pansies for my dear one - heartsease -
Set them gently so;
For his stainless lips and forehead,
Pansies white as snow.

Would that in the flower-grown little
Grave they dug so deep,
I might rest beside him, dreamless,
Smile no more, nor weep.

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Buttercups And Daisies

Buttercups and daisies growing everywhere,
In the field of clover, on the hillside fair,
And in lovely valley, tilled with greatest care.

Naught but weeds and rubbish, in the farmer's eyes,
Drawing off the nurture from the grain they prize,
And their great luxuriance sore their patience tries.

But the dews of heaven give them richest bloom,
And their smiling beauty drives away our gloom;
For such little beauties surely there is room.

In this world of sorrow flowers ne'er bloom in vain,
Though they in their blooming sap the golden grain,
And drink in the moisture of the latter rain;

For our Heavenly Father deemed it wise and good
To diffuse this beauty with the grain for food.
And this wise arrangement He has never rued.

Teaching us thi...

Joseph Horatio Chant