To our private taste, there is always something a little exotic,
 almost artificial, in songs which, under an English aspect and dress,
 are yet so manifestly the product of other skies. They affect us
 like translations; the very fauna and flora are alien, remote;
 the dog's-tooth violet is but an ill substitute for the rathe primrose,
 nor can we ever believe that the wood-robin sings as sweetly in April
 as the English thrush. -- THE ATHEN]AEUM.
 
 
 
 Buy my English posies!
 Kent and Surrey may --
 Violets of the Undercliff
 Wet with Channel spray;
 Cowslips from a Devon combe --
 Midland furze afire --
 Buy my English posies
 And I'll sell your heart's desire!
 
 Buy my English posies!
 You that scorn the May,
 Won't you greet a friend from home
 Half the world away?
 Green against the draggled drift,
 Faint and frail and first --
 Buy my Northern blood-root
 And I'll know where you were nursed:
Robin down the logging-road whistles, "Come to me!"
Spring has found the maple-grove, the sap is running free;
All the winds of Canada call the ploughing-rain.
Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again!
 
 Buy my English posies!
 Here's to match your need --
 Buy a tuft of royal heath,
 Buy a bunch of weed
 White as sand of Muysenberg
 Spun before the gale --
 Buy my heath and lilies
 And I'll tell you whence you hail!
Under hot Constantia broad the vineyards lie --
Throned and thorned the aching berg props the speckless sky --
Slow below the Wynberg firs trails the tilted wain --
Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again!
 
 Buy my English posies!
 You that will not turn --
 Buy my hot-wood clematis,
 Buy a frond o' fern
 Gathered where the Erskine leaps
 Down the road to Lorne --
 Buy my Christmas creeper
 And I'll say where you were born!
West away from Melbourne dust holidays begin --
They that mock at Paradise woo at Cora Lynn --
Through the great South Otway gums sings the great South Main --
Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again!
 
 Buy my English posies!
 Here's your choice unsold!
 Buy a blood-red myrtle-bloom,
 Buy the kowhai's gold
 Flung for gift on Taupo's face,
 Sign that spring is come --
 Buy my clinging myrtle
 And I'll give you back your home!
Broom behind the windy town; pollen o' the pine --
Bell-bird in the leafy deep where the ~ratas~ twine --
Fern above the saddle-bow, flax upon the plain --
Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again!
 
 Buy my English posies!
 Ye that have your own
 Buy them for a brother's sake
 Overseas, alone.
 Weed ye trample underfoot
 Floods his heart abrim --
 Bird ye never heeded,
 Oh, she calls his dead to him!
Far and far our homes are set round the Seven Seas;
Woe for us if we forget, we that hold by these!
Unto each his mother-beach, bloom and bird and land --
Masters of the Seven Seas, oh, love and understand.