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Rudyard Kipling - The Flowers
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     To our private taste, there is always something a little exotic,
     almost artificial, in songs which, under an English aspect and dress,
     are yet so manifestly the product of other skies.  They affect us
     like translations; the very fauna and flora are alien, remote;
     the dog`s-tooth violet is but an ill substitute for the rathe primrose,
     nor can we ever believe that the wood-robin sings as sweetly in April
     as the English thrush. — THE ATHEN]AEUM.
 
 
 
          Buy my English posies!
           Kent and Surrey may —
          Violets of the Undercliff
           Wet with Channel spray;
          Cowslips from a Devon combe —
           Midland furze afire —
          Buy my English posies
           And I`ll sell your heart`s desire!
 
    Buy my English posies!
     You that scorn the May,
    Won`t you greet a friend from home
     Half the world away?
    Green against the draggled drift,
     Faint and frail and first —
    Buy my Northern blood-root
     And I`ll know where you were nursed:
Robin down the logging-road whistles, "Come to me!"
Spring has found the maple-grove, the sap is running free;
All the winds of Canada call the ploughing-rain.
Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again!
 
    Buy my English posies!
     Here`s to match your need —
    Buy a tuft of royal heath,
     Buy a bunch of weed
    White as sand of Muysenberg
     Spun before the gale —
    Buy my heath and lilies
     And I`ll tell you whence you hail!
Under hot Constantia broad the vineyards lie —
Throned and thorned the aching berg props the speckless sky —
Slow below the Wynberg firs trails the tilted wain —
Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again!
 
    Buy my English posies!
     You that will not turn —
    Buy my hot-wood clematis,
     Buy a frond o` fern
    Gathered where the Erskine leaps
     Down the road to Lorne —
    Buy my Christmas creeper
     And I`ll say where you were born!
West away from Melbourne dust holidays begin —
They that mock at Paradise woo at Cora Lynn —
Through the great South Otway gums sings the great South Main —
Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again!
 
    Buy my English posies!
     Here`s your choice unsold!
    Buy a blood-red myrtle-bloom,
     Buy the kowhai`s gold
    Flung for gift on Taupo`s face,
     Sign that spring is come —
    Buy my clinging myrtle
     And I`ll give you back your home!
Broom behind the windy town; pollen o` the pine —
Bell-bird in the leafy deep where the ~ratas~ twine —
Fern above the saddle-bow, flax upon the plain —
Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again!
 
    Buy my English posies!
     Ye that have your own
    Buy them for a brother`s sake
     Overseas, alone.
    Weed ye trample underfoot
     Floods his heart abrim —
    Bird ye never heeded,
     Oh, she calls his dead to him!
Far and far our homes are set round the Seven Seas;
Woe for us if we forget, we that hold by these!
Unto each his mother-beach, bloom and bird and land —
Masters of the Seven Seas, oh, love and understand.
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