Explore "The Flowers" by Rudyard Kipling on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
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 ATHENAEUM.
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!