What The Flowers Saw

A poem by Madison Julius Cawein

She came through shade and shine,
By scarlet trumpetvine
And fragrant buttonbush,
That heaped the wayside hush
And oh!
The orange-red of the butterfly weed,
And pink of the milkweed's plume,
Nodded as if to give her heed
As she passed through gleam and gloom, heigh-ho!
As she passed through gleam and gloom.
Marybud-gold her hair;
And deep as it was fair;
Her eyes a chicory-blue,
Two wildflowers bright with dew
And oh!
The flowers knew, as flowers know,
The one she'd come to find;
They read the secret she hid below
In her maiden heart and mind, heigh-ho!
Her maiden heart and mind.
All day with hearts elate,
They watched him from the gate,
Where in the field he mowed
At the end of the old hill-road
And oh!
They seemed to see with their petaled eyes
The thing he was thinking of,
And whispered the wind, in secret-wise,
All that they knew of love, heigh-ho!
All that they knew of love.
No matter what befell
Not one wildflower will tell;
Not one, that leaned to look
And see the kiss he took
And oh!
The things they said in the woodland there
You must ask of the wandering breeze,
Who whispers all news of earth and air,
And is gossip of the trees, heigh-ho!
Old gossip of the trees.