THE FLOWER-GIRL BY THE
CROSSING.
“By the muddy crossing in
the crowded streets
Stands a little maid with
her basket full of posies,
Proffering all who pass her choice
of knitted sweets,
Tempting Age with heart’s-ease,
courting Youth with roses.
“Age disdains the heart’s-ease,
Love rejects the roses;
London life is busy,—
Who can stop for posies?
“One man is too grave, another
is too gay;
This man has his hothouse,
that man not a penny:
Flowerets too are common in the
month of May,
And the things most common
least attract the many.
“Ill, on London crossings,
Fares the sale of posies;
Age disdains the heart’s-ease,
Youth rejects the roses.”
When the verse-maker had done, he did not pause for
approbation, nor look modestly down, as do most people
who recite their own verses, but unaffectedly thinking
much more of his art than his audience, hurried on
somewhat disconsolately,—
“I see with great grief that I am better at
sketching than rhyming. Can you” (appealing
to Kenelm) “even comprehend what I mean by the
verses?”
KENELM.—“Do you comprehend, Tom?”
TOM (in a whisper).—“No.”
KENELM.—“I presume that by his flower-girl
our friend means to represent not only poetry, but
a poetry like his own, which is not at all the sort
of poetry now in fashion. I, however, expand his
meaning, and by his flower-girl I understand any image
of natural truth or beauty for which, when we are
living the artificial life of crowded streets, we
are too busy to give a penny.”
“Take it as you please,” said the minstrel,
smiling and sighing at the same time; “but I
have not expressed in words that which I did mean
half so well as I have expressed it in my sketch-book.”
“Ah! and how?” asked Kenelm.
“The image of my thought in the sketch, be it
poetry or whatever you prefer to call it, does not
stand forlorn in the crowded streets: the child
stands on the brow of the green hill, with the city
stretched in confused fragments below, and, thoughtless
of pennies and passers-by, she is playing with the
flowers she has gathered; but in play casting them
heavenward, and following them with heavenward eyes.”
“Good!” muttered Kenelm, “good!”
and then, after a long pause, he added, in a still
lower mutter, “Pardon me that remark of mine
the other day about a beefsteak. But own that
I am right: what you call a sketch from Nature
is but a sketch of your own thought.”
THE child with the flower-ball had vanished from the
brow of the hill; sinking down amid the streets below,
the rose-clouds had faded from the horizon; and night
was closing round, as the three men entered the thick
of the town. Tom pressed Kenelm to accompany him
to his uncle’s, promising him a hearty welcome
and bed and board, but Kenelm declined. He entertained
a strong persuasion that it would be better for the
desired effect on Tom’s mind that he should be
left alone with his relations that night, but proposed
that they should spend the next day together, and
agreed to call at the veterinary surgeon’s in
the morning.
