Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

WILD FLOWERS by GUSTAVE LEMOINE

First Line: FIELD FLOWER, A PRETTY SUNBURNT MAID
Last Line: AND TEARS OF PITYING GRIEF WITHHOLD.
Subject(s): FLOWERS;
FIELD flower, a pretty sunburnt maid,
Loved dearly a rich farmer's son;
But fortune lacked her hopes to aid,
Her dowry was her heart alone.
She wept. The father said, 'My lass,
Give ear, this meadow mow for me;
If in three days you cut the grass,
You to my son shall wedded be.'

This simple story that I sing
Does of a heart the ways unfold,
A tale of touching suffering,
To me was by a reaper told.

On hearing this the little maid
With joy and love near died away;
She seized her scythe and never stayed,
And mowed and laboured night and day:
Beneath the toil she nearly sank,
But from the hopes that prayers impart
Gained strength, and ne'er from striving shrank.
So prayer and hope filled all her heart.

This simple story that I sing
Does a heart's wondrous ways unfold,
A tale of saddest suffering,
To me was by a reaper told.

And as she toiled from hour to hour
A pretty daisy met her sight;
'You must be mown, poor little flower;
Love sways my hand in pity's spite.'

Yet as the daisy falls and dies,
Untimely forced its life to yield,
A teardrop dimmed the maiden's eyes,
Herself a wild flower of the field.

The simple story that I sing
Does a heart's wondrous ways unfold,
A tale of saddest suffering--
To me 'twas by a reaper told.

When on the third day, without fail,
The rich man to the field returned,
Though out of breath the girl, and pale,
Her eyes with joy and triumph burned.
'My girl, I did but joke,' he said;
'This money take to quit our score.'
But by her scythe that eve was laid,
Cut down and killed, one floweret more.

This tale of love and suffering,
To me one day the reaper told;
And not a girl this song can sing
And tears of pitying grief withhold.



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