Henry A. Wise Wood
SOUTH WIND
Where have you been, South Wind, this May-day morning,
With larks aloft, or skimming with the swallow,
Or with blackbirds in a green, sun-glinted thicket?
Oh, I heard you like a tyrant in the valley;
Your ruffian hosts shook the young, blossoming orchards;
You clapped rude hands, hallooing round the chimney,
And white your pennons streamed along the river.
You have robbed the bee, South Wind, in your adventure,
Blustering with gentle flowers; but I forgave you
When you stole to me shyly with scent of hawthorn.
Siegfried Sassoon
TO A WEED
You bold thing! thrusting 'neath the very nose
Of her fastidious majesty, the rose,
Even in the best ordainèd garden bed,
Unauthorized, your smiling little head!
The gardener, mind! will come in his big boots,
And drag you up by your rebellious roots,
And cast you forth to shrivel in the sun,
Your daring quelled, your little weed's life done.
And when the noon cools, and the sun drops low,
He'll come again with his big wheelbarrow,
And trundle you—I don't know clearly where,
But off, outside the dew, the light, the air.