To a Flower

What do you want of me dear little floret

Of lovable and charming memory?

Half dead yet half coquette,

Why do you come at this hour to me?

From foliage that had you encumbered,

You have journeyed afar from your land.

What have you seen and said to that hand

That you from the bush has sundered?

Are you merely dried up grass

That has come here to die?

Or does a new flower your breast underlie

Whilst gathering thoughts to express.

Your flower, alas, has the pallor

Of innocent desolation

But with a timorous aspiration

That your leaf will display your colour.

Have you perhaps for me a message?

You may speak, I am discreet.

Is your greenery a secret?

Is your perfume a language?

If it is so, may your low speech it impart,

Mysterious messenger on whom I rely.

If it is not, sleep in my heart

Gently and purely, and do not reply.

I knew that hand very well,

Full of grace and caprice,

That with a length of fine lace

Has knotted your flower so pale.

For that hand, little floret,

Neither Praxiteles nor Phidias

Would have been able to match it

Even if their model had been Venus.

It is pale, it is sweet and a beauty

And, frankly, has even greater allure;

Whoever could grasp such a quality

Could open a chest full of treasure.

But it is wise, it is severe;

Some evil could happen to me.

Fear its anger, little flower;

Say nothing and let my dreams be.