TO THE LADIES <br /> <br />Hard is my stem and dry, no root is found <br />To draw nutritious juices from the ground; <br />Yet of your ivory fingers' magic touch <br />The quickening power and strange effect is such, <br />My shrivelled trunk a sudden shade extends, <br />And from rude storms your tender frame defends: <br />A hundred times a day my head is seen <br />Crowned with a floating canopy of green; <br />A hundred times, as struck with sudden blight, <br />The spreading verdure withers to the sight. <br />Not Jonah's gourd by power unseen was made <br />So soon to flourish, and so soon to fade. <br /> <br />Unlike the Spring's gay race, I flourish most <br />When groves and gardens all their bloom have lost; <br />Lift my green head against the rattling hail, <br />And brave the driving snows and freezing gale; <br />And faithful lovers oft, when storms impend, <br />Beneath my friendly shade together bend, <br />There join their heads within the green recess, <br />And in the close-wove covert nearer press. <br />But lately am I known to Britain's isle, <br />Enough—You 've guessed—I see it by your smile.<br /><br />Anna Laetitia Barbauld<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/enigma-31/
