The Sundew

A little marsh-plant, yellow green,And pricked at lip with tender red.Tread close, and either way you treadSome faint black water jets betweenLest you should bruise the curious head.

A live thing maybe; who shall know?The summer knows and suffers it;For the cool moss is thick and sweetEach side, and saves the blossom soThat it lives out the long June heat.

The deep scent of the heather burnsAbout it; breathless though it be,Bow down and worship; more than weIs the least flower whose life returns,Least weed renascent in the sea.

We are vexed and cumbered in earth’s sightWith wants, with many memories;These see their mother what she is,Glad-growing, till August leave more brightThe apple-coloured cranberries.

Wind blows and bleaches the strong grass,Blown all one way to shelter itFrom trample of strayed kine, with feetFelt heavier than the moorhen was,Strayed up past patches of wild wheat.

You call it sundew: how it grows,If with its colour it have breath,If life taste sweet to it, if deathPain its soft petal, no man knows:Man has no sight or sense that saith.

My sundew, grown of gentle days,In these green miles the spring begunThy growth ere April had half doneWith the soft secret of her waysOr June made ready for the sun.

O red-lipped mouth of marsh-flower,I have a secret halved with thee.The name that is love’s name to meThou knowest, and the face of herWho is my festival to see.

The hard sun, as thy petals knew,Coloured the heavy moss-water:Thou wert not worth green midsummerNor fit to live to August blue,O sundew, not remembering her.