The Literary Compass
The Literary Compass Podcast
buy my english posies!
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buy my english posies!

rudyard Kipling
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The Flowers by Rudyard Kipling

Buy my English posies!
          Kent and Surrey may —
          Violets of the Undercliff
          Wet with Channel spray;
          Cowslips from a Devon combe —
          Midland furze afire —
          Buy my English posies
          And I'll sell your heart's desire!

    Buy my English posies!
    You that scorn the May,
    Won't you greet a friend from home
    Half the world away?
    Green against the draggled drift,
    Faint and frail and first —
    Buy my Northern blood-root
    And I'll know where you were nursed:
Robin down the logging-road whistles, "Come to me!"
Spring has found the maple-grove, the sap is running free;
All the winds of Canada call the ploughing-rain.
Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again!

    Buy my English posies!
    Here's to match your need —
    Buy a tuft of royal heath,
    Buy a bunch of weed
    White as sand of Muysenberg
    Spun before the gale —
    Buy my heath and lilies
    And I'll tell you whence you hail!
Under hot Constantia broad the vineyards lie —
Throned and thorned the aching berg props the speckless sky —
Slow below the Wynberg firs trails the tilted wain —
Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again!

    Buy my English posies!
    You that will not turn —
    Buy my hot-wood clematis,
    Buy a frond o' fern
    Gathered where the Erskine leaps
    Down the road to Lorne —
    Buy my Christmas creeper
    And I'll say where you were born!
West away from Melbourne dust holidays begin —
They that mock at Paradise woo at Cora Lynn —
Through the great South Otway gums sings the great South Main —
Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again!

    Buy my English posies!
    Here's your choice unsold!
    Buy a blood-red myrtle-bloom,
    Buy the kowhai's gold
    Flung for gift on Taupo's face,
    Sign that spring is come —
    Buy my clinging myrtle
    And I'll give you back your home!
Broom behind the windy town; pollen o' the pine —
Bell-bird in the leafy deep where the ~ratas~ twine —
Fern above the saddle-bow, flax upon the plain —
Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again!

    Buy my English posies!
    Ye that have your own
    Buy them for a brother's sake
    Overseas, alone.
    Weed ye trample underfoot
    Floods his heart abrim —
    Bird ye never heeded,
    Oh, she calls his dead to him!
Far and far our homes are set round the Seven Seas;
Woe for us if we forget, we that hold by these!
Unto each his mother-beach, bloom and bird and land —
Masters of the Seven Seas, oh, love and understand.

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