Page:Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.djvu/384

 RUNNIMEDE.

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��So, where within my garden-plat

I sow the choicest seed, Amid my favorite shrubs I placed

The plant from Runnimede, And know not why it may not draw

Sweet nutriment, the same As when within that noble clime

From whence our fathers came.

��Here s liberty enough for all,

If they but use it well, And Magna Charta s spirit lives

In even the lowliest cell, And the simplest daisy may unfold,

From scorn and danger freed : So make yourself at home, my friend,

My flower of Runnimede.

��The daisy of this poem, transplanted from the spot where Magna Charta was signed, accompanied me home. In my lonely state-room, amid the surging of the angry ocean, at the first dawn of every morning, it looked upon me with its honest face. It was of their happy genus who mind no trifles, and make the best of every thing. So it surmounted the voyage, when rarer plants perished. I gave it a good place in my garden, and it never seemed to know but what it was at home. There it flourished vigorously, for two years,

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