The Poverty Weed
Reading edition
O the poverty weed is so shabby and poor That she seems to disfigure the land, The russet clad waif of the desolate moor She buries her face in the sand. Her threadbare old mantle all faded and frayed What beauty can ever adorn? As she cowers in the background this shy desert maid So lowly, despised and forlorn. But over that moorland in splashes of gold Like sunbeams enriching the gloom, What visions of loveliness seem to unfold When the poverty weed is in bloom! Aglow are those hillsides once barren and lone And golden those patches of green, When this poor floral outcast comes into her own And the blossoms all bow to their queen.