Falk.
Well, let us keep the simile you chose.
Love is a flower; for if heaven's blessed rain
Fall short, it all but pines to death— [Pauses.
Miss Jay.
What then?
Falk [with a gallant bow].
Then come the aunts with the reviving hose.—
But poets have this simile employed,
And men for scores of centuries enjoyed,—
Yet hardly one its secret sense has hit;
For flowers are manifold and infinite.
Say, then, what flower is love? Name me, who knows,
The flower most like it?
Miss Jay.
Why, it is the rose;
Good gracious, that's exceedingly well known;—
Love, all agree, lends life a rosy tone.
A Young Lady.
It is the snowdrop; growing, snow enfurled;
Till it peer forth, undreamt of by the world.
An Aunt.
It is the dandelion,—made robust
By dint of human heel and horse hoof thrust;
Nay, shooting forth afresh when it is smitten,
As Pedersen so charmingly has written.
Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 1).pdf/431
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