William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Georgian Verse. 1909.
The Small CelandineWilliam Wordsworth (17701850)
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That shrinks, like many more, from cold and rain;
And, the first moment that the sun may shine,
Bright as the sun himself, ’tis out again!
Or blasts the green fields and the trees distrest,
Oft have I seen it muffled up from harm,
In close self-shelter, like a Thing at rest.
And recognized it, though an altered form,
Now standing forth an offering to the blast,
And buffeted at will by rain and storm.
‘It doth not love the shower, nor seek the cold:
This neither is its courage nor its choice,
But its necessity in being old.
It cannot help itself in its decay;
Stiff in its members, withered, changed of hue.’
And, in my spleen, I smiled that it was grey.
A Miser’s Pensioner—behold our lot!
O Man, that from thy fair and shining youth
Age might but take the things Youth needed not!