Gossip in a Flower Market

The rough roots of roses look a little sad to me; (I can never grow roses, though I keep on trying,) Those kitten-faced pansies have just caught a honey-bee— O the wild-flowers in bunches make me feel like crying!

I mustn't buy narcissus; they cost more than anything; (Exquisite and moon-white! Half-startled and surprised;—) The daffodils are always, so insistently Spring,— And the parrot-tulip's costume, for carnival devised.

I wish I could find a box of wild thyme growing; (Wild thyme—that grew upon a bank so long ago;) There's a shower of laburnam, for now it is blowing;— It should really have a grey fence behind it, you know.

Don't you like that queer grey moss they plant on rockeries With its tiny coral bells the fairies must adore? And that man sells immortelles—brittle white mockeries And waxy wreaths of dark leaves;—I don't know what they're for.

O Jack-in-the-pulpit! And only that one, I see,— We must take him home to be our week-end guest; In a golden-brown pool he learned all his theology— But I think he is the parson that I like the best.

In that old cracked pitcher! See! The first mignonette, Once someone said that mignonette was just like myself,— A sweet illusion;—but for that, you know, I buy it yet— And put it in a blue jar and set it on a shelf.