Poems
Cowslips
Oh! fragrant dwellers of the lea,
When first the wild wood rings
With each sound of vernal minstrelsy,
When fresh the green grass springs!
What can the blessed spring restore,
More gladd’ning than your charms?
Bringing the memory once more
Of lovely fields and farms!
Of thickets, breezes, birds, and flowers;
Of life’s unfolding prime;
Of thoughts as cloudless as the hours;
Of souls without a crime.
Oh! blessed, blessed do ye seem,
For even now, I turn’d,
With soul athirst for wood and stream,
From streets that glared and burn’d.
From the hot town, where mortal care
His crowded fold doth pen;
Where stagnates the polluted air
In many a sultry den.
And are ye here? and are ye here?
Drinking the dew like wine,
Midst living gales and waters clear,
And heaven’s unstinted shine.
I care not that your little life
Will quickly have run through,
And the sward with summer children rife
Keep not a trace of you.
For again, again, on dewy plain,
I trust to see you rise,
When spring renews the wild wood strain,
And bluer gleam the skies.
Again, again, when many springs
Upon my grave shall shine,
Here shall you speak of vanish’d things,
To living hearts of mine.
When first the wild wood rings
With each sound of vernal minstrelsy,
When fresh the green grass springs!
What can the blessed spring restore,
More gladd’ning than your charms?
Bringing the memory once more
Of lovely fields and farms!
Of thickets, breezes, birds, and flowers;
Of life’s unfolding prime;
Of thoughts as cloudless as the hours;
Of souls without a crime.
Oh! blessed, blessed do ye seem,
For even now, I turn’d,
With soul athirst for wood and stream,
From streets that glared and burn’d.
From the hot town, where mortal care
His crowded fold doth pen;
Where stagnates the polluted air
In many a sultry den.
And are ye here? and are ye here?
Drinking the dew like wine,
Midst living gales and waters clear,
And heaven’s unstinted shine.
I care not that your little life
Will quickly have run through,
And the sward with summer children rife
Keep not a trace of you.
For again, again, on dewy plain,
I trust to see you rise,
When spring renews the wild wood strain,
And bluer gleam the skies.
Again, again, when many springs
Upon my grave shall shine,
Here shall you speak of vanish’d things,
To living hearts of mine.
Analysis (ai): The poem centers on renewal, nature’s cyclical return, and spiritual connection to the rural landscape, contrasting natural serenity with urban oppression. The cowslips symbolize innocence, transience, and continuity, acting as silent witnesses across generations.
- Tone and Language: Archaic forms like “gladd’ning,” “doth,” and “athirst” lend a devotional, elevated tone, aligning the speaker’s voice with Romantic-era idealization of nature. The diction distances the poem from contemporary speech, enhancing its meditative quality.
- Form and Structure: Composed in rhymed quatrains with a consistent iambic rhythm, the poem adheres to conventional late-Romantic lyric structure. The refrain-like repetitions (“Again, again,” “And are ye here?”) reinforce thematic recurrence with minimal formal innovation.
- Urban-Rural Binary: The contrast between “streets that glared and burn’d” and the “living gales” of the countryside reflects a common 19th-century critique of industrialization. Unlike contemporaries who focused on rural labor or decline, this poem privileges personal spiritual restoration through passive observation.
- Less-Discussed Angle: Rather than mourning personal mortality, the speaker projects identity onto the flowers, anticipating a future in which the cowslips address “living hearts of mine” posthumously—suggesting a lineage of feeling rather than belief in an afterlife.
- Author Context: Among her lesser-known works, this poem diverges from her socially engaged writing on temperance and labor; here, introspection replaces activism. Its emphasis on natural continuity reflects a personal retreat amid a career marked by public moral discourse.
- Historical Position: While contemporaneous with Victorian poetry’s turn toward doubt and urban realism, this piece retains Romantic faith in nature’s consoling power, resisting the era’s growing skepticism. It lacks the psychological complexity seen in later poets like Arnold or Hardy.
- Modern Relevance: Though pre-modernist, its ecological undertone—anxiety over polluted air and confined life—prefigures 20th-century environmental consciousness. The poem’s quiet resistance to urban alienation resonates with later critiques of modernity, though without formal experimentation.
Mary Howitt
(1799 – 1888)
Mary Howitt
(12 March 1799 – 30 January 1888) was an English writer, editor, translator and a pioneer of the women’s rights movement in the UK. She is most known as the author of the famous poem The Spider and the Fly. She translated several works by Hans Christian Andersen and Frederika Bremer. Some of her works were written in conjunction with her husband, William Howitt. Many, in verse and prose, were intended for young people.
