The Purple Dandelion and the Dame
There was a purple dandelion which I once had—
Which into the blues suddenly disappeared;
Oh! for many days it was my only possession,
Before I was dispossessed and left for dead!
For with nothing could I afterward be consoled,
So I for my loss, many days and nights wept;
O, who could have taken my purple dandelion?—
And where could my beauty have been kept?!
At last, after several hours of a futile search,
Into the garden of Lord Macbeth I went to lay—
And there in a blossom of beautiful flowers,
Was found my lost dandelion without a delay.
But how could I go thence with my beauty
While it lied in the palms of a pretty dame?
So I approached her with my warmest smile,
And highly hoped she reply me with same.
"That dandelion was once mine", I calmly said,
As I shyly spied at her ribbons and blue eyes;
Yet looking at me with such gaze soon replied,
"What is your proof that these are not but lies?"
Yet with an unwavering smile I said to her,
"Allow me then my lady, to pay with my heart";
But she, so surprised at me, could not but yell,
"You mean this dandelion is worthy as that?!"
And further in her tempered speech she went—
All from which her surprise could not refrain:
"If for a mere flower you could so much give,
Then what would you for a one like me retain?"
On hearing that, my heart pounded in my chest—
Yet with the calmest voice I gave a fine reply:
"God forbid that I desire a dandelion than you,
For to do that is to choose not to live but to die!"
But perplexed still, she spoke the more wryly,
"And with what will you buy me if you so insist?"
Then with an assuring smile I boldly declared,
"With my dandelion, my heart, and myself indeed!"
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