Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE WALL-FLOWER, by DAVID MACBETH MOIR Poet's Biography First Line: The wall-flower - the wall-flower Last Line: Thou art the flower for me! Alternate Author Name(s): Delta Subject(s): Fields; Flowers; Gardens & Gardening; Graves; Pastures; Meadows; Leas; Tombs; Tombstones | ||||||||
I. THE Wall-flowerthe Wall-flower, How beautiful it blooms! It gleams above the ruined tower, Like sunlight over tombs; It sheds a halo of repose Around the wrecks of time. To beauty give the flaunting rose, The Wall-flower is sublime. II. Flower of the solitary place! Grey ruin's golden crown, That lendest melancholy grace To haunts of old renown; Thou mantlest o'er the battlement, By strife or storm decayed; And fillest up each envious rent Time's canker-tooth hath made. III. Thy roots outspread the ramparts o'er, Where, in war's stormy day, Percy or Douglas ranged of yore Their ranks in grim array; The clangour of the field is fled, The beacon on the hill No more through midnight blazes red, But thou art blooming still! IV. Whither hath fled the choral band That fill'd the Abbey's nave? Yon dark sepulchral yew-trees stand O'er many a level grave. In the belfry's crevices, the dove Her young brood nurseth well, While thou, lone flower! dost shed above A sweet decaying smell. V. In the season of the tulip-cup, When blossoms clothe the trees, How sweet to throw the lattice up, And scent thee on the breeze; The butterfly is then abroad, The bee is on the wing, And on the hawthorn by the road The linnets sit and sing. VI. Sweet Wall-flowersweet Wall-flower! Thou conjurest up to me Full many a soft and sunny hour Of boyhood's thoughtless glee; When joy from out the daisies grew, In woodland pastures green, And summer skies were far more blue, Than since they e'er have been. VII. Now autumn's pensive voice is heard Amid the yellow bowers, The robin is the regal bird, And thou the queen of flowers; He sings on the laburnum trees, Amid the twilight dim, And Araby ne'er gave the breeze Such scents, as thou to him. VIII. Rich is the pink, the lily gay, The rose is summer's guest; Bland are thy charms when these decay, Of flowersfirst, last, and best! There may be gaudier in the bower, And statelier on the tree; But Wall-flowerloved Wall-flower, Thou art the flower for me! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE SURVIVOR AMONG GRAVES by RANDALL JARRELL SUBJECTED EARTH by ROBINSON JEFFERS THE GRAVE OF MRS. HEMANS by CECIL FRANCES ALEXANDER THOSE GRAVES IN ROME by LARRY LEVIS NOT TO BE DWELLED ON by HEATHER MCHUGH ONE LAST DRAW OF THE PIPE by PAUL MULDOON ETRUSCAN TOMB by JOHN FREDERICK NIMS ENDING WITH A LINE FROM LEAR by MARVIN BELL THE RUSTIC LAD'S LAMENT IN THE TOWN by DAVID MACBETH MOIR |
|