Cowslip.

Cowslip.
(See also page 34.)

[i.e. between ‘Bindweed’- here p. 186 and ‘Pears’, p. 187]
Shakspere (for nothing either great or small
Escaped his observation) noted well
The rubies in their coats of gold. Hill and dell
And plain, lacking his fairy pensioners tall,*
Would greatly lose their charm, when joyous Spring 5
Wake all to life with flowers and songs of birds.
What pleasure it in early life affords
To gather cowslips! What time the valleys ring—
As in the days of Walton’s wanderings
+
—
In musical contention with sweet notes 10
Gushing in ecstasy from long-silent throats
Of Thrush and Blackbird; whilst the glad lark sings
Its hymns above us in the clear blue sky,
And Earth seems happy then both far and nigh.

George Markham Tweddell
* + See over for Notes
[Sonnets on Trees and Flowers, p. 27]


Notes to “Cowslips” – see other side on p. 27
In the finely-fanciful drama, A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
Shakspere has made the Fairy sing in the Athenian wood, an
answer to Puck’s inquiry – “How now spirit! Whither wander
you?”—
“Over hill, over dale,
Through bush, through brier,
Over park, over pale,
Through flood, through fire,
I do wonder everywhere,
Swifter than the moon’s sphere;
And I serve the Fairy Queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green:
The cowslip tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours;
I must go seek some dewdrops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.
Farewell, thou lob of spirits, I’ll be gone;
Our Queen and all her elves come here anon.”
+
“Look! Under the broad beech tree I sat down when I was
last this way a-fishing, and the birds in the adjoining grove
seemed to have a friendly contention with an echo, whose dead
voice seemed to live in a hollow tree near to the brow of the
primrose hill.”—The Complete Angler, by Isaak Walton.
[Sonnets on Trees and Flowers, p. 28]