A Bunch of Cowslips.
In the rarest of English valleys
A motherless girl ran wild,
And the greenness and silence and gladness
Were soul of the soul of the child.
The birds were her gay little brothers,
The squirrels her sweethearts shy;
And her heart kept tune with the raindrops,
And sailed with the clouds in the sky;
And angels kept coming and going,
With beautiful things to do;
And wherever they left a footprint,
A cowslip or primrose grew.
She was taken to live in London—
So thick with pitiless folk—
And she could not smile for its badness,
And could not breathe for its smoke;
And now as she lay on her pallet,
Too weary and weak to rise,
A smile of ineffable longing
Brought dews to her faded eyes;
“Oh, me! for a yellow cowslip,
A pale little primrose dear!
Won’t some kind angel remember,
And pluck one and bring it here?”
They brought her a bunch of cowslips;
She took them with fingers weak,
And kissed them, and stroked them, and loved them,
And laid them against her cheek.
“It was kind of the angels to send them;
And now I’m too tired to pray,
If God looks down at the cowslips,
He’ll know what I want to say.”
They buried them in her bosom;
And when she shall wake and rise,
Why may not the flowers be quickened,
And bloom in her happy skies?