Ye field flowers! the gardens eclipse you ’tis true,
Yet, wildings of nature I dote upon you,
For ye waft me to summers of old,
When the earth teemed around me with faery delight,
And when daisies and buttercups gladdened my sight,
Like treasures of silver and gold.
I love you for lulling me back into dreams
Of the blue Highland mountains and echoing streams,
And of birchen glades breathing their balm,
While the deer was seen glancing in sunshine remote,
And the deep mellow crush of the wood-pigeon’s note,
Made music that sweetened the calm.
Not a pastoral song has a pleasanter tune
Than ye speak to my heart, little wildings of June:
Of old ruinous castles ye tell,
Where I thought it delightful your beauties to find,
When the magic of Nature first breathed on my mind,
And your blossoms were part of her spell.
E’en now what affections the violet awakes;
What loved little islands twice seen in their lakes,
Can the wild water-lily restore;
What landscapes I read in the primrose’s looks,
And what pictures of pebbled and minnowy brooks
In the vetches that tangled their shore.
Earth’s cultureless buds, to my heart ye were dear,
Ere the fever of passion, or ague of fear
Had scathed my existence’s bloom;
Once I welcome you more in life’s passionless stage,
With the visions of youth to revisit my age,
And I wish you to grow on my tomb.