To The Cowslip

"Of all spring joys, the dearest is

To drink thy breath again,

Freshest of flowers; 

The bluebell lights the copse,

The primrose paves the glen,

But thy frank beauty overtops

In open fields

The new-born grass, to meet the kiss

Of sun and wind and showers,

And yields

Spring's essence from five red drops

That dyed the breast of Imogen.

Sun-freckled art thou, as the child

Who kneeleth down to snap

Thy sturdy stem,

And fill thy pure gold

Her snowy-aproned lap,

White treasury of wealth untold;

Deftly she makes, 

In bountiful profusion piled,

A regal ball of them,

And takes

For sceptre one that high doth hold

His head in pride of April sap.

My earliest love of flowers, how good

To lay my sunburnt face

In grass so lush

It shames the name of green,

And fold in one embrace

The clustered heads of all I glean,

And kiss the pure

Warm lips of that fair sisterhood, 

Or'mid their golden flush

Immure

The splendour of some clowslip queen

Who reigned apart a loftier grace.

Then home to sleep by Avon stream,

Cheered by the honest wine,

Of cowslip flowers;

So pure a draught alone

Gives slumber so divine;

All night I breathe the sweet air blown

O'er fields thick starred

With cowslip constellations, dream

Of golden-embrasured towers

That guard

Some fay for whom bees make moan,

While cowslips by my cheek recline."

~ To the Cowslip by Alfred Hayes {from The Vale of Arden and Other Poems}