Home ⇒ 📌Robert William Service ⇒ The Flower Shop
The Flower Shop
Because I have no garden and
No pence to buy,
Before the flower shop I stand
And sigh.
The beauty of the Springtide spills
In glowing posies
Of voilets and daffodils
And roses.
And as I see that joy of bloom,
Sad sighing,
I think of Mother in her room,
Lone lying.
She babbles of the garden fair
Her childhood knew,
And how she gathered roses there
In joyous dew.
I shiver in the street so grey,
Yet still I stop;
In gutter grime it seems so gay,
This flower shop. . .
“Oh Mister, could you spare one rose?”
(There now, I’m crying),
“For Mother, every blossom knows
Is dying.”
(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Related poetry:
- The Wee Shop She risked her all, they told me, bravely sinking The pinched economies of thirty years; And there the little shop was, meek and shrinking, The sum of all her dreams and hopes and fears. Ere it was opened I would see them in it, The gray-haired dame, the daughter with her crutch; So fond, so […]...
- Of The Shop He wrapped them carefully, neatly In costly green silk. Roses of ruby, lilies of pearl, Violets of amethyst. As he himself judged, As he wanted them, they look beautiful to him; not as he saw Or studied them in nature. He will leave them in the safe, A sample of his daring and skillful craft. […]...
- 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 […]...
- The Flower How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean Are thy returns! ev’n as the flowers in spring; To which, besides their own demean, The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring. Grief melts away Like snows in May, As if there were no such cold thing. Who would have thought my shrivelled heart Could have recovered […]...
- We should not mind so small a flower We should not mind so small a flower Except it quiet bring Our little garden that we lost Back to the Lawn again. So spicy her Carnations nod So drunken, reel her Bees So silver steal a hundred flutes From out a hundred trees That whoso sees this little flower By faith may clear behold […]...
- Flower God, God Of The Spring FLOWER god, god of the spring, beautiful, bountiful, Cold-dyed shield in the sky, lover of versicles, Here I wander in April Cold, grey-headed; and still to my Heart, Spring comes with a bound, Spring the deliverer, Spring, song-leader in woods, chorally resonant; Spring, flower-planter in meadows, Child-conductor in willowy Fields deep dotted with bloom, daisies […]...
- The Fruit Shop Cross-ribboned shoes; a muslin gown, High-waisted, girdled with bright blue; A straw poke bonnet which hid the frown She pluckered her little brows into As she picked her dainty passage through The dusty street. “Ah, Mademoiselle, A dirty pathway, we need rain, My poor fruits suffer, and the shell Of this nut’s too big for […]...
- Retired Shopman He had the grocer’s counter-stoop, That little man so grey and neat; His moustache had a doleful droop, He hailed me in the slushy street. “I’ve sold my shop,” he said to me, Cupping his hand behind his ear. “My deafness got so bad, you see, Folks had to shout to make me hear.” He […]...
- Parting at a Wine-shop in Nan-king A wind, bringing willow-cotton, sweetens the shop, And a girl from Wu, pouring wine, urges me to share it. With my comrades of the city who are here to see me off; And as each of them drains his cup, I say to him in parting, Oh, go and ask this river running to the […]...
- Someone's Mother Someone’s Mother trails the street Wrapt in rotted rags; Broken slippers on her feet Drearily she drags; Drifting in the bitter night, Gnawing gutter bread, With a face of tallow white, Listless as the dead. Someone’s Mother in the dim Of the grey church wall Hears within a Christmas hymn, One she can recall From […]...
- The Chanpa Flower Supposing I became a chanpa flower, just for fun, and grew on a Branch high up that tree, and shook in the wind with laughter and Danced upon the newly budded leaves, would you know me, mother? You would call, “Baby, where are you?” and I should laugh to Myself and keep quite quiet. I […]...
- The Flower-School When storm-clouds rumble in the sky and June showers come down. The moist east wind comes marching over the heath to blow its Bagpipes among the bamboos. Then crowds of flowers come out of a sudden, from nobody knows Where, and dance upon the grass in wild glee. Mother, I really think the flowers go […]...
- The Flower of Liberty WHAT flower is this that greets the morn, Its hues from Heaven so freshly born? With burning star and flaming band It kindles all the sunset land: Oh tell us what its name may be, Is this the Flower of Liberty? It is the banner of the free, The starry Flower of Liberty! In savage […]...
- To Flower When Pentheus [“grief’] went into the mountains in the garb of the baccae, his mother [Agave] and the other maenads, possessed by Dionysus, tore him apart (Euripides, Bacchae; Apollodorus 3.5.2; Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.511-733; Hyginus, Fabulae 184). The agave dies as soon as it blooms; the moonflower, or night-blooming cereus, is a desert plant of similar […]...
- Ah! Sun-Flower Ah Sun-flower! weary of time. Who countest the steps of the Sun; Seeking after that sweet golden clime Where the travellers journey is done. Where the Youth pined away with desire, And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow: Arise from their graves and aspire. Where my Sun-flower wishes to go....
- As if some little Arctic flower As if some little Arctic flower Upon the polar hem Went wandering down the Latitudes Until it puzzled came To continents of summer To firmaments of sun To strange, bright crowds of flowers And birds, of foreign tongue! I say, As if this little flower To Eden, wandered in What then? Why nothing, Only, your […]...
- From "Asphodel, That Greeny Flower" Of asphodel, that greeny flower, like a buttercup upon its branching stem- Save that it’s green and wooden- I come, my sweet, to sing to you. We lived long together a life filled, if you will, With flowers. So that I was cheered when I came first to know That there were flowers also in […]...
- Flower of Love The perfume of your body dulls my sense. I want nor wine nor weed; your breath alone Suffices. In this moment rare and tense I worship at your breast. The flower is blown, The saffron petals tempt my amorous mouth, The yellow heart is radiant now with dew Soft-scented, redolent of my loved South; O […]...
- Flower Pluck this little flower and take it, delay not! I fear lest it Droop and drop into the dust. I may not find a place in thy garland, but honour it with a touch of Pain from thy hand and pluck it. I fear lest the day end before I am Aware, and the time […]...
- Bloom is Result to meet a Flower Bloom is Result to meet a Flower And casually glance Would scarcely cause one to suspect The minor Circumstance Assisting in the Bright Affair So intricately done Then offered as a Butterfly To the Meridian To pack the Bud oppose the Worm Obtain its right of Dew Adjust the Heat elude the Wind Escape the […]...
- A Weed is a flower in the wrong place A weed is a flower in the wrong place, A flower is a weed in the right place, If you were a weed in the right place You would be a flower; But seeing as you’re a weed in the wrong place You’re only a weed – Its high time someone pulled you out....
- The Flower-Fed Buffaloes THE flower-fed buffaloes of the spring In the days of long ago, Ranged where the locomotives sing And the prarie flowers lie low: The tossing, blooming, perfumed grass Is swept away by wheat, Wheels and wheels and wheels spin by In the spring that still is sweet. But the flower-fed buffaloes of the spring Left […]...
- THE BEAUTEOUS FLOWER SONG OF THE IMPRISONED COUNT. COUNT. I KNOW a flower of beauty rare, Ah, how I hold it dear! To seek it I would fain repair, Were I not prison’d here. My sorrow sore oppresses me, For when I was at liberty, I had it close beside me. Though from this castle’s walls so steep […]...
- The Flower of Mending (To Eudora, after I had had certain dire adventures.) When Dragon-fly would fix his wings, When Snail would patch his house, When moths have marred the overcoat Of tender Mister Mouse, The pretty creatures go with haste To the sunlit blue-grass hills Where the Flower of Mending yields the wax And webs to help their […]...
- Asking For Roses A house that lacks, seemingly, mistress and master, With doors that none but the wind ever closes, Its floor all littered with glass and with plaster; It stands in a garden of old-fashioned roses. I pass by that way in the gloaming with Mary; ‘I wonder,’ I say, ‘who the owner of those is.’ ‘Oh, […]...
- Wind and Window Flower LOVERS, forget your love, And list to the love of these, She a window flower, And he a winter breeze. When the frosty window veil Was melted down at noon, And the cagèd yellow bird Hung over her in tune, He marked her through the pane, He could not help but mark, And only passed […]...
- Poor Poet ‘A man should write to please himself,’ He proudly said. Well, see his poems on the shelf, Dusty, unread. When he came to my shop each day, So peaked and cold, I’d sneak one of his books away And say ’twas sold. And then by chance he looked below, And saw a stack Of his […]...
- A Garden In Chicago In the mid-city, under an oiled sky, I lay in a garden of such dusky green It seemed the dregs of the imagination. Hedged round by elegant spears of iron fence My face became a moon to absent suns. A low heat beat upon my reading face; There rose no roses in that gritty place […]...
- A Bunch of Roses Roses ruddy and roses white, What are the joys that my heart discloses? Sitting alone in the fading light Memories come to me here tonight With the wonderful scent of the big red roses. Memories come as the daylight fades Down on the hearth where the firelight dozes; Flicker and flutter the lights and shades, […]...
- The Return They turned him loose; he bowed his head, A felon, bent and grey. His face was even as the Dead, He had no word to say. He sought the home of his old love, To look on her once more; And where her roses breathed above, He cowered beside the door. She sat there in […]...
- Soldier, Maiden, and Flower “Sweetheart, take this,” a soldier said, “And bid me brave good-by; It may befall we ne’er shall wed, But love can never die. Be steadfast in thy troth to me, And then, whate’er my lot, ‘My soul to God, my heart to thee,’ Sweetheart, forget me not!” The maiden took the tiny flower And nursed […]...
- The Flower must not blame the Bee The Flower must not blame the Bee That seeketh his felicity Too often at her door But teach the Footman from Vevay Mistress is “not at home” to say To people any more!...
- Dram-Shop Ditty I drink my fill of foamy ale I sing a song, I tell a tale, I play the fiddle; My throat is chronically dry, Yet savant of a sort am I, And Life’s my riddle. For look! I raise my arm to drink- A voluntary act, you think (Nay, Sir, you’re grinning)> You’re wrong: this […]...
- Perhaps you'd like to buy a flower Perhaps you’d like to buy a flower, But I could never sell If you would like to borrow, Until the Daffodil Unties her yellow Bonnet Beneath the village door, Until the Bees, from Clover rows Their Hock, and Sherry, draw, Why, I will lend until just then, But not an hour more!...
- Window Shopper I stood before a candy shop Which with a Christmas radiance shone; I saw my parents pass and stop To grin at me and then go on. The sweets were heaped in gleamy rows; On each I feasted – what a game! Against the glass with flatted nose, Gulping my spittle as it came; So […]...
- I send you a decrepit flower I send you a decrepit flower That nature sent to me At parting she was going south And I designed to stay Her motive for the souvenir If sentiment for me Or circumstances prudential Withheld invincibly...
- Fruit of the Flower My father is a quiet man With sober, steady ways; For simile, a folded fan; His nights are like his days. My mother’s life is puritan, No hint of cavalier, A pool so calm you’re sure it can Have little depth to fear. And yet my father’s eyes can boast How full his life has […]...
- The Wild Flower's Song As I wandered the forest, The green leaves among, I heard a Wild Flower Singing a song. ‘I slept in the earth In the silent night, I murmured my fears And I felt delight. ‘In the morning I went As rosy as morn, To seek for new joy; But oh! met with scorn.’...
- By a flower By a letter By a flower By a letter By a nimble love If I weld the Rivet faster Final fast above Never mind my breathless Anvil! Never mind Repose! Never mind the sooty faces Tugging at the Forge!...
- The discreet collector Down south there is a curio-shop Unknown to many men; Thereat do I intend to stop When I am south again; The narrow street through which to go Aha! I know it well! And may be you would like to know But no I will not tell! ‘T is there to find the loveliest plates […]...