The Evolutionist at Large

Dear Mother, take this English posy, culled.
In alien fields beyond the severing sea:
Take it in memory of the boy you lulled
One chill Canadian winter on your knee.
Its flowers are but chance friends of after years,
Whose very names my childhood hardly knew;
And even today far sweeter in my ears
Ring older names unheard long seasons through.
I loved them all—the bloodroot, waxen white,
Canopied mayflower, trilliums red and pale,
Flaunting lobelia, lilies richly dight,
And pipe-plant from the wood behind the Swale.