From "AN AUGUST REVERIE"

The ragged daisy starring all the fields, The buttercup abrim with pallid gold, The thistle and burr-flowers hedged with prickly shields, All common weeds the draggled pastures hold, With shrivelled pods and leaves, are kin to me, Like-heirs of earth and her maturity. They speak a silent speech that is their own, These wise and gentle teachers of the grass; And when their brief and common days are flown, A certain beauty from the year doth pass:— A beauty of whose light no eye can tell, Save that it went; and my heart knew it well. I may not know each plant as some men know them, As children gather beasts and birds to tame; But I went 'mid them as the winds that blow them, From childhood's hour, and loved without a name. There is more beauty in a field of weeds Than in all blooms the hothouse garden breeds. For they are nature's children; in their faces I see that sweet obedience to the sky That marks these dwellers of the wilding places, Who with the season's being live and die; Knowing no love but of the wind and sun, Who still are nature's when their life is done. They are a part of all the haze-filled hours, The happy, happy world all drenched with light, The far-off, chiming click-clack of the mowers, And yon blue hills whose mists elude my sight; And they to me will ever bring in dreams Far mist-clad heights and brimming rain-fed streams.