The Poem

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That is work of waste and ruin—
Do as Charles and I are doing!
Strawberry-blossoms, one and all,
We must spare them—here are many:
Look at it—the flower is small,
Small and low, though fair as any:
Do not touch it! summers two
I am older, Anne, than you.
Pull the primrose, sister Anne!
Pull as many as you can.
—Here are daisies, take your fill;
Pansies, and the cuckoo-flower:
Of the lofty daffodil
Make your bed, or make your bower;
Fill your lap, and fill your bosom;
Only spare the strawberry-blossom!
Primroses, the Spring may love them—
Summer knows but little of them:
Violets, a barren kind,
Withered on the ground must lie;
Daisies leave no fruit behind
When the pretty flowerets die;
Pluck them, and another year
As many will be blowing here.
God has given a kindlier power
To the favoured strawberry-flower.
Hither soon as spring is fled
You and Charles and I will walk;
Lurking berries, ripe and red,
Then will hang on every stalk,
Each within its leafy bower;
And for that promise spare the flower!
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[Contents 1802]
[Main Contents]		[1]

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[Variant 1:]

1815
That is work which I am rueing—1807

That is work which I am rueing—

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[Variant 2:]

1836
... and ... 1807

... and ...

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[Variant 3:]

1815
Violets, do what they will,
Wither'd on the ground must lie;
Daisies will be daisies still;
Daisies they must live and die:
Fill your lap, and fill your bosom,
Only spare the Strawberry-blossom!




1807

Violets, do what they will,
Wither'd on the ground must lie;
Daisies will be daisies still;
Daisies they must live and die:
Fill your lap, and fill your bosom,
Only spare the Strawberry-blossom!

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[Variant 4:]

This last stanza was added in the edition of 1815.

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[Variant 5:]

1836
When the months of spring are fled
Hither let us bend our walk;
1815

When the months of spring are fled
Hither let us bend our walk;

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Note:

The full title of this poem, in the editions of 1807 to 1832, was Foresight, or the Charge of a Child to his younger Companion, but it was originally known in the household as "Children gathering Flowers." The shortened title was adopted in 1836. The following is from Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal:

"Wednesday, 28th April (1802).—Copied the Prioress's Tale. William was in the orchard. I went to him; he worked away at his poem, though he was ill, and tired. I happened to say that when I was a child I would not have pulled a strawberry blossom; I left him, and wrote out the Manciple's Tale. At dinner time he came in with the poem of Children gathering Flowers, but it was not quite finished, and it kept him long from his dinner. It is now done. He is working at The Tinker."

At an earlier date in the same year,—Jan. 31st, 1802,—the following occurs:

"I found a strawberry blossom in a rock. The little slender flower had more courage than the green leaves, for they were but half expanded and half grown, but the blossom was spread full out. I uprooted it rashly, and I felt as if I had been committing an outrage; so I planted it again. It will have but a stormy life of it, but let it live if it can."

With this poem compare a parallel passage in Marvel's The Picture of T. C. in a Prospect of Flowers:

'But oh, young beauty of the woods,
Whom nature courts with fruits and flowers,
Gather the flowers, but spare the buds;
Lest Flora, angry at thy crime
To kill her infants in their prime,
Should quickly make the example yours;
And, ere we see,
Nip in the blossom all our hopes in thee.'

Ed.

[Contents 1802]
[Main Contents]

To the Small Celandine[A]