Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


TO MRS -- RETURNING FINE HYACINTH PLANT AFTER BLOOM IS OVER by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD

Poet Analysis

First Line: EVEN AS A CHERISH'D DAUGHTER LEAVES HER HOME
Last Line: THE PLANT MAY BLOOM AGAIN -- NOT SO THE MAID.

Even as a cherish'd daughter leaves her home
Blushing and breathing sweets; her home, where, nurs'd
With fond attendance every morn and eve,
She grew and flourish'd, and put forth her charms
In virgin purity; and to that home
From the polluted commerce of the world,
Returns with faded charms, forlorn and sad,
And soil'd and dropping locks -- in such sad plight
Send I your nurseling; breathing now no more
Ambrosial sweets, nor lifting her proud stem,
Rich with enamell'd flowers, to meet the gaze
Of raptur'd florist, but return'd to lie
Low in the earth; yet, when the genial Spring
With new impulses thrills the swelling veins,
The plant may bloom again -- not so the maid.



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