IN the Royal City spring is almost over: Tinkle, tinkle -- the coaches and horsemen pass. We tell each other "This is the peony season": And follow with the crowd that goes to the Flower Market. "Cheap and dear -- no uniform price: The cost of the plant depends on the number of blossoms. For the fine flower, -- a hundred pieces of damask: For the cheap flower, -- five bits of silk. Above is spread an awning to protect them: Around is woven a wattle-fence to screen them. If you sprinkle water and cover the roots with mud, When they are transplanted, they will not lose their beauty." Each household thoughtlessly follows the custom, Man by man, no one realizing. There happened to be an old farm labourer Who came by chance that way. He bowed his head and sighed a deep sigh: But this sigh nobody understood. He was thinking, "A cluster of deep-red flowers Would pay the taxes of ten poor houses." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SEVEN TIMES THREE [ - LOVE] by JEAN INGELOW THE WEATHER-COCK POINTS SOUTH by AMY LOWELL AT PORT ROYAL by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER TO A REPUBLICAN FRIEND, 1848, CONTINUED by MATTHEW ARNOLD EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND ELEVEN by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD |