Happy Birthday, Tennyson

Cameron, Tennyson, 1865

The FLOWER

Once in a golden hour

   I cast to earth a seed.

Up there came a flower,

   The people said, a weed.

 

To and fro they went

   Thro’ my garden bower,

And muttering discontent

   Cursed me and my flower.

 

Then it grew so tall

   It wore a crown of light,

But thieves from o’er the wall

   Stole the seed by night.

 

Sow’d it far and wide

   By every town and tower,

Till all the people cried,

   ‘Splendid is the flower! ’

 

Read my little fable:

   He that runs may read.

Most can raise the flowers now,

   For all have got the seed.

 

And some are pretty enough,

   And some are poor indeed;

And now again the people

   Call it but a weed.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, born on this day in 1809