5. To the Small Celandine

 

Small Celandine, with summer’s glen,
In morning dew, all your leaves wet –
You are dear as the briar-rose.
Midst woodland brook and violet,
Midst the water, melting of snows,
By the eglantine in its season,
You live for equity and reason.

One so small and so very fair,
Like other flowers against the rain,
That shrink in close shelter, at rest,
As the sun shines, come out again.
Small Celandine you are blest –
The very moment the sun casts light,
Your youthful bloom is first in sight.

And when the blast comes through the field,
Or when the hail falls in a swarm,
Yes, gentle flower, in your recess,
You are muffled up, safe from harm.
Though the green field was in distress,
In hooded mantle you safely dwelt,
Thus, the day’s tempest was never felt.

Then Celandine, an age was past,
And you were altered in your form,
You could not in your mantle lie,
But stood forth, offered to the storm.
It made a Bard think very high,
How to his age, ‘midst all its fervor,
Change came, and with it change of color.

‘Twas neither by courage nor choice,
By which you faced the hail and cold,
You were altered by the decay,
‘Twas the effect of getting old.
An age must change or pass away,
You are an emblem of Mankind’s lot,
Old forms must part, the new need not.

The poet, Shelley, filled with pride,
Valued not the Laureate’s flower,
For that old Bard was past his prime,
Fallen on a cold and evil hour,
Immortal youth was more the time,
For none could a sweeter aspect wear,
Than Celandine, when so young and fair.

Yet Shelley was in the bloom desert,
When he received you, Celandine.
Though yellow – thought of aery blue –
Heard of you through the grapevine,
And supposed you changed your hue.
For Celandine, you came old and dead –
Old and dead – just as Shelley said.