THE FLOWERS

    To our private taste, there is always something a little exotic,
    almost artificial, in songs which, under an English aspect and dress,
    are yet so manifestly the product of other skies. They affect us
    like translations; the very fauna and flora are alien, remote;
    the dog's-tooth violet is but an ill substitute for the rathe primrose,
    nor can we ever believe that the wood-robin sings as sweetly in April
    as the English thrush. -- THE ATHEN]AEUM.



       Buy my English posies!
        Kent and Surrey may --
       Violets of the Undercliff
        Wet with Channel spray;
       Cowslips from a Devon combe --
        Midland furze afire --
       Buy my English posies
        And I'll sell your heart's desire!

   Buy my English posies!
    You that scorn the May,
   Won't you greet a friend from home
    Half the world away?
   Green against the draggled drift,
    Faint and frail and first --
   Buy my Northern blood-root
    And I'll know where you were nursed:
Robin down the logging-road whistles, "Come to me!"
Spring has found the maple-grove, the sap is running free;
All the winds of Canada call the ploughing-rain.
Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again!

   Buy my English posies!
    Here's to match your need --
   Buy a tuft of royal heath,
    Buy a bunch of weed
   White as sand of Muysenberg
    Spun before the gale --
   Buy my heath and lilies
    And I'll tell you whence you hail!
Under hot Constantia broad the vineyards lie --
Throned and thorned the aching berg props the speckless sky --
Slow below the Wynberg firs trails the tilted wain --
Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again!

   Buy my English posies!
    You that will not turn --
   Buy my hot-wood clematis,
    Buy a frond o' fern
   Gathered where the Erskine leaps
    Down the road to Lorne --
   Buy my Christmas creeper
    And I'll say where you were born!
West away from Melbourne dust holidays begin --
They that mock at Paradise woo at Cora Lynn --
Through the great South Otway gums sings the great South Main --
Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again!

   Buy my English posies!
    Here's your choice unsold!
   Buy a blood-red myrtle-bloom,
    Buy the kowhai's gold
   Flung for gift on Taupo's face,
    Sign that spring is come --
   Buy my clinging myrtle
    And I'll give you back your home!
Broom behind the windy town; pollen o' the pine --
Bell-bird in the leafy deep where the ratas twine --
Fern above the saddle-bow, flax upon the plain --
Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again!

   Buy my English posies!
    Ye that have your own
   Buy them for a brother's sake
   Overseas, alone.
   Weed ye trample underfoot
   Floods his heart abrim --
   Bird ye never heeded,
   Oh, she calls his dead to him!
Far and far our homes are set round the Seven Seas;
Woe for us if we forget, we that hold by these!
Unto each his mother-beach, bloom and bird and land --
Masters of the Seven Seas, oh, love and understand.