They err'd not who relied for fame
On works of such magnificence;
Whose charms, unchangeably the same,
Surprise and ravish soul and sense.

For here, though long since dead, they live
With power to waken smiles and tears;
And to unconscious canvass give
What lived and breathed in distant years:

What still shall captivate, when we
Who now with admiration gaze,
Like those who fashion'd them, shall be
The creatures of departed days.

Still shall that sleeping infant's face
Beauty and innocence reveal;
That sainted mother's matron grace
To every mother's heart appeal.

Those misty mountains still shall rise,
As now they do; those vales expand;
And still those torrents, trees, and skies,
Tell of each master's magic hand.

A little marsh-plant, yellow green,
And pricked at lip with tender red.
Tread close, and either way you tread
Some faint black water jets between
Lest you should bruise the curious head.

A live thing maybe; who shall know?
The summer knows and suffers it;
For the cool moss is thick and sweet
Each side, and saves the blossom so
That it lives out the long June heat.

The deep scent of the heather burns
About it; breathless though it be,
Bow down and worship; more than we
Is the least flower whose life returns,
Least weed renascent in the sea.

We are vexed and cumbered in earth's sight
With wants, with many memories;
These see their mother what she is,
Glad-growing, till August leave more bright
The apple-coloured cranberries.

Wind blows and bleaches the strong grass,
Blown all one way to shelter it
From trample of strayed kine, with feet
Felt heavier than the moorhen was,
Strayed up past patches of wild wheat.

You call it sundew: how it grows,
If with its colour it have breath,
If life taste sweet to it, if death
Pain its soft petal, no man knows:
Man has no sight or sense that saith.

My sundew, grown of gentle days,
In these green miles the spring begun
Thy growth ere April had half done
With the soft secret of her ways
Or June made ready for the sun.

O red-lipped mouth of marsh-flower,
I have a secret halved with thee.
The name that is love's name to me
Thou knowest, and the face of her
Who is my festival to see.

The hard sun, as thy petals knew,
Coloured the heavy moss-water:
Thou wert not worth green midsummer
Nor fit to live to August blue,
O sundew, not remembering her.