TO THE DANDELION. BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
Reading edition
This poem, like Bryant’s “Waterfowl,” like many of Longfellow’s, speaks of the objects of nature in a reflective, almost religious tone, portraying the love of our American poets for “these living pages of God’s book.”
Dear common flower, that grow’st beside the way, Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold, First pledge of blithesome May, Which children pluck, and, full of pride, uphold, High hearted buccaneers, o’erjoyed that they An El Dorado in the grass have found, Which not the rich earth’s ample round May match in wealth, thou art more dear to me Than all the prouder summer blooms may be.
Gold such as thine ne’er drew the Spanish prow Through the primeval hush of Indian seas, Nor wrinkled the lean brow Of age to rob the lover’s heart of ease; ’Tis the spring’s largess, which she scatters now To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand, Though most hearts never understand To take it at God’s value, but pass by The offered wealth with unrewarded eye,
Thou art my tropics and mine Italy; To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime; The eyes thou givest Are in the heart, and heed not space or time. Not in mid-June the gold cuirassed bee Feels a more summerlike warm ravishment In the white lily’s breezy tent, His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when first From the dark green thy yellow circles burst.
How like a prodigal doth nature seem, When thou, for all thy gold, so common art! Thou teachest me to deem More sacredly of every human heart, Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show, Did we but pay the love we owe. And with a child’s undoubting wisdom look, On all these pages of God’s book.