page: 70
To His Daughter
- I BOUGHT you flowers on Ludgate Hill,
- Dear violets in December,
- And all the way to Charing Cross
- They whispered of the rain‐wet moss,
- The budding briars, the April days,
- The pageant of the woodland ways,
- And all the pleasant plots and plays
- That you and I remember.
- I met you on the platform chill
- Where winter winds were snarling;
- Your smile that lit that gloomy place
- Lit up for me that other face
- Of her who sold the violets—mean,
- Poor, broken, desolate, unclean:
- A ruined slave, who might have been
- A Queen like you, my darling.
