Page:MU KPB 009 The Springtide of Life Poems of Childhood by Algernon Charles Swinburne.pdf/82

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For each one flower, perchance
Blooms as his cognizance:
  The snowdrop chill,
The violet unbeholden,
For some: for you the golden
   Daffodil.

Erect, a fighting flower,
It breasts the breeziest hour
  That ever blew,
And bent or broke things brittle
Or frail, unlike a little
   Knight like you.

Its flower is firm and fresh
And stout like sturdiest flesh
  Of children: all
The strenuous blast that parches
Spring hurts it not till March is
   Near his fall.

If winds that prate and fret
Remark, rebuke, regret,
  Lament, or blame
The brave plant’s martial passion
It keeps its own free fashion
   All the same.

We that would fain seem wise
Assume grave mouths and eyes
  Whose looks reprove
Too much delight in battle:
But your great heart our prattle
   Cannot move.

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