Destroyers and Other Verses/When the Copse is Grey With Bud

by Henry Head

When the copse is grey with bud,

And spring is surging in my blood,

Year by year beneath the hill

I sought a simple for my ill.

Blushing at a word o’erbold,

Praying when the world seemed cold,

Loveliest of flowers to me

Was the wood anemone.

On simple homely cares intent,

A spring of passive self-content

Led me where among the kine

Gleams the golden celandine.

Yellow primroses that vie

With the dawn tints of the sky;

Violets with a joyous sense

Of hidden, scented opulence;

Palm that on a leafless tree

Flowers foretelling Calvary,

Each has caught a fleeting mood

Of my budding womanhood.

Doomed a maid to dwell apart,

Within my solitary heart,

When bitter milk-streams upward surge,

I go to pluck the woodland spurge.