C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Ebenezer Elliott (1781–1849)

THY fruit full well the schoolboy knows,

Wild bramble of the brake!

So put thou forth thy small white rose:

I love it for his sake.

Though woodbines flaunt and roses glow

O’er all the fragrant bowers,

Thou need’st 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 mossed gray 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.

Scorned bramble of the brake! once more

Thou bidd’st me be a boy,

To gad with thee the woodlands o’er,

In freedom and in joy.