The Troll's Nosegay

A simple nosegay! was that much to ask?
    (Winter still gloomed, with scarce a bud yet showing).
He loved her ill, if he resigned the task.
    'Somewhere,' she cried, 'there must be blossom blowing.'
It seems my lady wept and the troll swore
    By Heaven he hated tears: he'd cure her spleen;
Where she had begged one flower, he'd shower four-score,
    A haystack bunch to amaze a China Queen.

Cold fog-drawn Lily, pale mist-magic Rose
    He conjured, and in a glassy cauldron set
    With elvish unsubstantial Mignonette
And such vague bloom as wandering dreams enclose.
    But she?
        Awed,
                Charmed to tears,
                Distracted,
        Yet,
Even yet, perhaps, a trifle piqued, who knows?

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

Strong Beer

Robert von Ranke Graves, Simple Poetry

Two Fusiliers

Robert von Ranke Graves, Simple Poetry

To E.M., A Ballad Of Nursery Rhyme.

Robert von Ranke Graves, Simple Poetry

Faun

Robert von Ranke Graves, 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.

Garden-Fancies - I. The Flowers Name

I.

Heres the garden she walked across,
Arm in my arm, such a short while since:
Hark, now I push its wicket, the moss
Hinders the hinges and makes them wince!
She must have reached this shrub ere she turned,
As back with that murmur the wicket swung;
For she laid the poor snail, my chance foot spurned,
To feed and forget it the leaves among.

II.

Down this side ofthe gravel-walk
She went while her robes edge brushed the box:
And here she paused in her gracious talk
To point me a moth on the milk-white flox.
Roses, ranged in valiant row,
I will never think that she passed you by!
She loves you noble roses, I know;
But yonder, see, where the rock-plants lie!

III.

This flower she stopped at, finger on lip,
Stoope...

Robert Browning

The Gossips

A rose in my garden, the sweetest and fairest,
    Was hanging her head through the long golden hours;
And early one morning I saw her tears falling,
    And heard a low gossiping talk in the bowers.

The yellow Nasturtium, a spinster all faded,
    Was telling a Lily what ailed the poor Rose:
'That wild, roving Bee, who was hanging about her
    Has jilted her squarely, as every one knows.

'I knew when he came, with his singing and sighing,
    His airs and his speeches, so fine and so sweet,
Just how it would end; but no one would believe me,
    For all were quite ready to fall at his feet.'

'Indeed, you are wrong,' said the Lilybelle proudly,
    'I cared nothing for him.    He called on me once
And would have come often, no doubt, if I'd asked him....

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

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

The Gossips

A rose in my garden, the sweetest and fairest,
    Was hanging her head through the long golden hours;
And early one morning I saw her tears falling,
    And heard a low gossiping talk in the bowers.
The yellow Nasturtium, a spinster all faded,
    Was telling a Lily what ailed the poor Rose:
"That wild roving Bee who was hanging about her,
    Has jilted her squarely, as every one knows.

"I knew when he came, with his singing and sighing,
    His airs and his speeches so fine and so sweet,
Just how it would end; but no one would believe me,
    For all were quite ready to fall at his feet."
"Indeed, you are wrong," said the Lily-belle proudly,
    "I cared nothing for him; he called on me once,
And would have come often, no doubt, if I'd asked him,
    But t...

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

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;
The fir deal looks darker and greener,
And grass hills below look the same;
The air all about is serener,
The birds less familiar and tame.

Here's two or three flowers for my fair one,
Wood primroses and celandine too;
I oft look about for a rare one
To put in a posy for you.
The birds look so clean and so neat,
Though there's scarcely a leaf on the grove;
The sun shines about me so sweet,
I cannot help thinking of love.

So where the blue violets are peeping,
By the warm sunny sides of the woods,
And the primrose, 'neath early morn weeping,
Amid a large cluster of buds,
(The morning it was suc...

John Clare

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