The Harebell (Campanula rotundifolia).

The Harebell (Campanula rotundifolia).

No garden cultured flower e’er seems to me
More graceful than the Harebell growing wild.
It help’d to form my posy when a child,
And I now love to gather it to be
Part of a grandchild’s; for I would fain to teach 5
The love of flowers to all. With fancy free,
One may imagine fairy minstrelsy
Chiming from those frail bells: to all and each
They seem to ring out in the willing ear
Death to all evil, long life to all good; 10
That we have need of more than clothes and food
To truly live; and ev’ry passing year
Should find our love of beauty wax more strong;
And our whole lives should be sweet as a poet’s song.

George Markham Tweddell
[Sonnets on Trees and Flowers, p. 10.] Also published in Yorkshire
Gazette, October 10th, 1885. Texas Masonic Journal, Fort Worth,
Texas, July, 1886. Northern Weekly Gazette, Oct. 23/97.

Sonnet, written May 11th, 1884.

Sonnet, written May 11th, 1884.

In their full blush are now the flowers of Spring:
How the sweet Jacinth, with its watchet hue,
Vies with its neighbour Speedwell’s eyes of blue!
These, with the Primrose and the Cowslip, fling
Beauty o’er all the scene. Rose Campions bring 5
Their well-named blooms; Stichwort, and Cuckoo flowers,
And bright Marsh Marigolds, with these are ours
Daisies and Buttercups; while above us sing
The joyous Larks, making the welkin ring
With their choice melody. In yonder bush, 10
Just as in Walton’s day,* loud sings the Thrush;
The Cuckoo too brings her gay welcoming;
Whilst Broom, and Gorse, and Dandelion, as of old,
Gild all the landscape with their floral gold.

George Markham Tweddell
* “How do the Blackbird and Throssel, with their
melodious voices, bid welcome to the cheerful Spring, and
in their fixed months warble forth such ditties as no art or
instrument can reach to.”—The Complete Angler, written
in 1653. The Song Thrush is still called the Throssel in
Yorkshire.
[Sonnets on Trees and Flowers, pp. 11-12.] “The foregoing Sonnet
appeared in the Leeds Mercury Weekly Supplement, May 17, 1884.
The Masonic Review, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, May, 1885”.

The Dandelion (Dens Leonis).

The Dandelion (Dens Leonis).

I love the Dandelion’s golden stars,
Gleaming in beauty o’er the vernal meads:
Some seventy years agone, I blew its seeds
To tell what ‘t was o’clock! My spirit wars
With Superstition—strives to break its yoke 5
For self and others; yet I love to see
My grandbairns, in their joyous innocency,
Blowing the down-wing’d seeds, when oft we walk
Along the foot-paths of my native vale:
And when they stop to pluck the hollow stems 10
To make their floral chains, I fancy gems,
Though rich and rare, in after years will fail
To give them equal pleasure. Are not we
Oft idling our lives away o’er seeds of Vanity?

George Markham Tweddell

[Sonnets on Trees and Flowers, p. 13.] Also published in Voice of
Masonry, Chicago, Illinois, U.S., January, 1887, Texas Masonic
Journal, Fort Worth, Texas, U.S., July, 1887 Northern Weekly
Gazette, April 3rd, 1897.

The Bramble (Rubus Vulgaris).

The Bramble (Rubus Vulgaris).

Brave Elliot loved “thy satin-threaded flowers,”
Dear Bramble! All who appreciate those things
Of beauty which Nature as largess flings
So freely over valleys, plains, and moors,
Must share the Corn Law Rhymer’s healthy love. 5
And who in Autumn does not like to taste
Thy pleasant Dewberries?* There is no waste
Throughout the universe; for all things move
In strict obedience to the unchanging laws
Wisely laid down by Him who cannot err; 10
And He alone is His true worshipper
Who studies to obey them. The Great First Cause
Adorns our very brakes with fruit and flowers,—
As if to teach us all that happiness may be ours.

George Markham Tweddell
* During my various visits to the Land of Shakspere, I fully satisfied
myself, by frequent inquiries among the people, that the “Dewberries”
mentioned by our great Bard, were not Gooseberries, as erroneously
stated by some of the Commentators, but really the fruit of the Bramble.
I got Warwickshire agricultural labourers, about Stratford-on-Avon, to
gather for me sprays of what they call “Dewberries”. Without telling
them what I believed them to be, and the briars, leaves, flowers, and
fruit, which they collected for me, were always those of the Bramble.
[Sonnets on Trees and Flowers, pp. 14-15.] Also published in Texas
Masonic Journal, Sept., 1886. Voice of Masonry, Chicago, Illinois,
U.S., Feb., 1888 (without Note)


...................................


Editor's Note -
Tweddell refers to Ebenezer Elliott's poem below. Elliott is known as the Poor Law poet and both shared a concern for the poor and for nature in their work. Paul Tweddell and I (Trev Teasdel), with the help of Malcolm Chase of Leeds University and Keith Morris who runs the Ebenezer Elliott website explored the relationship between the two poets recently.

You can read our findings here http://georgemarkhamtweddell.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/poets-view-of-george-markham-tweddell.html under the sub heading -
A Radical Canon of  Poets: EBENEZER ELLIOT


And further work on Keith Morris's Ebenezer Elliott site - here http://www.judandk.force9.co.uk/Tweddell.html George Tweddell & the Rabble's Poet


And the full site for Ebenezeer Elliott - http://www.judandk.force9.co.uk/elly.htm

Here is Ebenezer Elliott's poem

To the Bramble Flower
Thy fruit full-well the schoolboy knows,
Wild bramble of the brake!
So, put thou forth thy small white rose:
I love it for its sake.
Though woodbines flaunt and roses glow
O’er all the fragrant bowers,
Thou needst not be ashamed to show
Thy satin-threaded flowers;
For dull the eye, the heart is dull,
That cannot feel how fair,
Amid all beauty beautiful,
Thy tender blossoms are!
How delicate thy gauzy frill!
How rich thy branchy stem!
How soft thy voice, when woods are still,
And thou sing'st hymns to them;
While silent showers are falling slow
And, 'mid the general hush,
A sweet air lifts the little bough,
Lone whispering through the bush!
The primrose to the grave is gone;
The hawthorn flower is dead;
The violet by the moss'd grey stone
Hath laid her weary head;
But thou, wild bramble! back dost bring,
In all their beauteous power,
The fresh green days of life's fair spring,
And boyhood's blossomy hour.
Scorn'd bramble of the brake! once more
Thou bid'st me be a boy,
To gad with thee the woodlands o'er,
In freedom and in joy.[viii]

The Germander Speedwell (Veronica chameadrys).

The Germander Speedwell
(Veronica chameadrys).
I have a special liking for thy flowers,
Germander Speedwell! Like to angels’ eyes
They seem to me; bluer than watchet skies
When most serene in Summer’s loveliest hours:
And all life long in Nature’s sylvan bowers, 5
From early childhood, till my hair is white
With frosts of three score Winters, my delight
Was greater than my muse’s feeble powers
Can e’er express, whene’er I met with thee.
I thank my God for ev’ry floral gem, 10
And for the joy I feel in loving them.
Though poor in purse, I hold the world in fee:
For none need e’er feel poor, despised, or dull,
Who truly loves the Good and Beautiful.

George Markham Tweddell
[Sonnets on Trees and Flowers, p. 16.] Also published in Hull Weekly
Express, Aug. 30, 1884. Texas Masonic Journal, Sept., 1886. Northern
Weekly Gazette, June 19th, 1897

The Cracking of the Corn.

The Cracking of the Corn.

When loitering in the Cornfield, I have oft
Listen’d with pleasure to crackling sound
Made fitfully by ripening grain all round;
Glass-coated straws, each bearing up aloft
Its load of welcome food,—Oats, Barley, Wheat, 5
Or Rye; fit nutriment for beast and man:
And when cool zephyrs breathe, to gently fan
Our burning brows in the autumnal heat,
How gracefully the golden grain doth wave
Its myriad heads in homage to the sun! 10
Mankind from savagery had well begun
To march the path of progress, and to have
Dim notions they were for usefulness were born,
Men in rude furrows they first sow’d the corn.

George Markham Tweddell
[Sonnets on Trees and Flowers, p. 17.] Also published in The
Freemason, Detroit, Michigan, U.S., Nov. 13, 1886, Northern
fWeekly Gazette, October 30th, 1897

The Daisy (Bellis Perennis).

The Daisy (Bellis Perennis).

The “Day’s Eye” blooms in father Chaucer’s verse,
Through all the centuries; in an inspired hour,
Burns sang the “modest, crimson, tippêd flower”;
Sweetly and brief as old Wither did rehearse
How it does “shut when Titan goes to bed;” 5
Wordsworth with mighty power, has hymn’d its praise;
Montgomery i’ the choicest of his lays,
Tells “how it never dies!” Often it led
Our infant footsteps into rural lanes,
Or along by-paths rich with many a gem 10
Fallen from Flora’s glowing diadem,
Till health and happiness were e’er our gains.
Children are always poets: pity we
Should ever quench the sparks of poësy.

George Markham Tweddell
[Sonnets on Trees and Flowers, p. 18.] Also published in Voice of
Masonry, March, 1885. Northern Weekly Gazette, April 17/97.


................................
Editor's note -

In the intro to the Collected poems of George Markham Tweddell, descendant Paul Tweddell suggests, in relation to this poem -

"GMT also created his own ‘national canon’ in the poem on p. 186 below, ‘The Daisy (Bellis Perennis)’, which reinforced his wish to be judged alongside the ‘radical’ poets in the widest sense. These were Chaucer, Burns, Wither (1588-1667)[ix], James Montgomery (1771-1854), with Southey added later as a poet, but not for his politics (see the poem ‘Robert Southey’ – p. 50 below) and ‘William Wordsworth’ (p. 63 below). Montgomery, although a Scot, was a campaigning reformist especially against slavery, spending much of his life in Yorkshire and was imprisoned in 1795 and 1796. Later he responded to Ebenezer Elliot’s request for advice on his poetry, information that strengthens GMT’s links to like-minded poets.[x]"

Full text of intro here  http://georgemarkhamtweddell.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/poets-view-of-george-markham-tweddell.html  sub-heading A Radical Cannon of Poets.