Lesser celandine (Ranunculus ficaria) is a cheerful sight in spring with its shiny, buttercup yellow flowers.
There is a Flower, the lesser Celandine,
That shrinks, like many more, from cold an rain;
And the first moment that the sun may shine,
Bright as the sun himself, 't is out again!
When hailstones have been falling, swarm on swarm,
Or blasts the green field and the trees distrest,
Oft have I seen it muffled up from harm,
In close self-shelter, like a THing at rest.
But lately, one rough daat, this FLower I passe
And recognised it, though and latered form,
Now standing forth an offering to the blast,
And buffeted at will by rain and storm.
I stopped, and said with inly - muttered voice,
"It doth not live the shower, nor seek the cold:
This niether is its courage nor its choice,
But its necessity in being old.
"The sunshine many not cheer it, nor the dew;
It cannot help itself in its decay;
Stiff in its memebers, withered, changed of hue."
And, in my spleen, I smiled that it was grey.
To be a Prodigal's Favourite — then, worse truth,
A Miser's Pensioner — behold our lot!
O Manm that from thy fair and shining youth
Age might but take the things Youth needed not!
W. Wordsworth