ON OBSERVING A BLOSSOM
ON THE FIRST OF FEBRUARY.
Sweet flower! that peeping from thy russet stem,
Unfoldest timidly (for in strange sort
This dark, frieze-coated, hoarse, teeth-chattering month
Hath borrowed Zephyr’s voice, and gazed on thee
With blue, voluptuous eye); alas, poor flower!
These are but flatteries of the faithless year,
Perchance escaped its unknown polar cave.
E’en now the keen north-east is on its way,
Flower thou must perish! Shall I liken thee
To some sweet girl of too, too rapid growth?
Samuel T. Coleridge, 1770–1849.