Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO THE SWEETWILLIAM, by NORMAN ROWLAND GALE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO THE SWEETWILLIAM, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I search the poet's honied lines
Last Line: Sweetwilliam!
Subject(s): Dramatists; Nature; Plays & Playwrights ; Poetry & Poets; Shakespeare, William (1564-1616); Dramatists


I SEARCH the poet's honied lines,
And not in vain, for columbines;
And not in vain for other flowers
That sanctify the many bowers
Unsanctified by human souls.
See where the larkspur lifts among
The thousand blossoms finely sung,
Still blossoming in the fragrant scrolls!
Charity, eglantine, and rue
And love-in-a-mist are all in view,
With coloured cousins; but where are you,
Sweetwilliam?

The lily and the rose have books
Devoted to their lovely looks,
And wit has fallen in vital showers
Through England's most miraculous hours
To keep them fresh a thousand years.
The immortal library can show
The violet's well-thumbed folio
Stained tenderly by girls in tears.
The shelf where Genius stands in view
Has brier and daffodil and rue
And love-lies-bleeding; but not you,
Sweetwilliam.

Thus, if I seek the classic line
For marybuds, 'tis, Shakespeare, thine!
And ever is the primrose born
'Neath Goldsmith's overhanging thorn.
In Herrick's breastknot I can see
The appleblossom, fresh and fair
As when he plucked and put it there,
Heedless of Time's anthology.
So flower by flower comes into view,
Kept fadeless by the Olympian dew
For startled eyes; and yet not you,
Sweetwilliam.

Too seldom named! And never so
As makes the astonished heart to go
With deer-like leapings! Horace found
A name unsuited to the bound
His gleaming satires had to bear:
Even so, methinks, a want of grace
In country calling lost a place
In poesy for one so fair.
How chancily a blossom slips
From ballad sunshine to eclipse,
Being short of honey for the lips,
Sweetwilliam!

Though gods of song have let you be,
Bloom in my little book for me.
Unwont to stoop or lean, you show
An undefeated heart, and grow
As pluckily as cedars. Heat
And cold, and winds that make
Tumbledown sallies, cannot shake
Your resolution to be sweet.
Then take this song, be it born to die
Ere yet the unwedded butterfly
Has glimpsed a darling in the sky,
Sweetwilliam!





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