The First Primrose Poem by Bessie Rayner Parkes

LITTLE yellow darling,
Delicate and pale,
Can thy gentle loveliness
Brook such a wintry gale,
That nestled by this rushing stream,
Thou sleepest like a lost sunbeam!

Little yellow darling,
At the breath of your perfume,
I sit within that quiet nook
Where many sisters bloom;
And all believing, (who does not!)
Pore on the lays of Walter Scott.

Such old romantic fancies
Your perfume brings to me,
Half of the proud baronial times,
And half of woodland free.
A blended vision strangely wrought
Of where I was and what I thought.

The thick green boughs above me wave,
The falling foam-drops leap,
And lazily unto the bank
The happy cattle creep.
Where thou, the first of Spring's fair daughters,
Art wet with spray of dancing waters.

How many a joyous noontide walk,
And evening frolic wild,
Of which thou wert the treasure-trove
While I was yet a child,
Is with thy tender beauty blent,
And wafted on thy pale pure scent!

No clouded thought of darker hours
My dreaming spirit grieves;--
(Which for us all clings round some flowers
And lurks within their leaves,)
Or meets me, greeting thee again
To cause a gladness dashed with pain.

But days as innocent as thou,
As peacefully employed,
Which left no shadow on my brow,
I there with thee enjoyed;
And year by year thy smiles once more
Something of that bright dawn restore.

Sleep quietly, fair bud of hope,
To wake thee were a crime,
Unfold in all thy simple scope
For all the appointed time--
Some other eye than mine may bless
The teaching in thy loveliness.