Jack-by-the-Hedge, or Sauce Alone (Sysimbricum Alliasion).

Jack-by-the-Hedge, or Sauce Alone
(Sysimbricum Alliasion).
‘Our ancestors’ sole salading! I greet
Your nettle looking leaves, and flowers of white,
With a true welcome, for ye seem to invite
The student to shut up his books, and meet
The jocund Springtime in her vernal bowers— 5
For listen to the minstrelry of birds—
To gaze on pastures fleckt with flocks and herds,
And buds burst into leaf, and other flowers
Than those you bear,—daisy and celandine,
Violet and stitchwort, archangels white and red, 10
Cowslip and primrose, and chickweed’s bed
Beneath the hedgerow; and, favourite of mine,
Whoever may despise that golden star,
The dandelion gleaming and far.

George Markham Tweddell
[Sonnets on Trees and Flowers, p. 9.] Also published in Cleveland
News, Aug. 29th,1885. Northern Weekly Gazette, Ap. 10/97.