I
FLOWERS are poetic, vegetables prose,-
So it is said; yet music may there be,
Though in a lower, less ecstatic key,
In common things, and every flower that grows
Hath elements of beauty to disclose
To eyes that have not lost the power to see;
And poetry is not of one degree,
Hut many more than learned scribes suppose.
Beauty of hue is here less often seen
Than in the flowers we grow to please the eye;
But when did Nature not delight in green?
Beauty of form and grace of symmetry
Are shared by plants the world considers mean,
And therein lies a wealth of poesy.
II
What leaves are here, so delicate and fine,
Like green lace ruffles, fashioned to adorn
A dress by Oberon or Titania worn?
Can these be carrots? And these plants that twine
Round their supports, with leaves of such design
As Bacchus in his chaplet might have borne,
And flowers as red as poppies in the corn?
Are these no more than beans whereon we dine?
And what fair flowers are these that we behold,
Such as a monarch well might deign to wear,
Imperial purple round an eye of gold,
And these of gold and white, but not less fair?
Whence came such beauty? Let the truth be told:
These are the blossoms that potatoes bear.
(Robert Henry Forster)
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