Sweet Peas.

By helpful fingers taught to twine         Around its trellis, grew     A delicate and dainty vine;     The bursting bud, its blossom sign,         Inlaid with honeyed-dew.     Developing by every art         To floriculture known,     From tares exempt, and kept apart,     Careful, as if in some fond heart         Its legume germs were sown.     So thriving, not for me alone         Its beauty and perfume -     Ah, no, to rich perfection grown     By flower mission loved and known         In many a darkened room.     And once in strange and solemn place,         Mid weeping uncontrolled,     Upon the crushed and snowy lace     I saw them scattered 'round a face         All pallid, still, and cold.     Oh, some may choose, as gaudy shows,         Those saucy sprigs of pride     The peony, the red, red rose;     But give to me the flower that grows         Petite and pansy-eyed.     Thus, meditation on Sweet Peas         Impels the ardent thought,     Would maidens all were more like these,     With modesty - that true heartsease -         Tying the lover's knot.