O, faithless murmurer, thou may’st read
A lesson in the lowly sod,
Heaven will supply thine utmost need,
Fear not, but trust in God.
1865.
[5]Awarded the prize for English verse in the University of Toronto in 1865.
The Skunk Cabbage
“Along the oozing margins of swampy streams, where Spring seems to detach the sluggish ice from the softening mud, the Skunk Cabbage is boldly announcing nature’s revival. Handsome, vigorous and strong, richly coloured in purple, with delicate . . . markings of yellow, it rises . . . a pointed bulb-like flower, as large as a lemon. . . . Even its devoted admirers, who seek it as the earliest of all the awakening flowers, feel constrained to apologise for the odour it exhales.”—S. T. Wood, in The Globe.
The soft south wind hath kissed the earth
That long a widowed bride hath been;