Every week, on this page, we will show a different poem from a selection of poems chosen by prominent members of the Robert Graves Society.
THE TROLL’S NOSEGAY
A simple nosegay! was that much to ask?
(Winter still nagged, with scarce a bud yet showing.)
He loved her ill, if he resigned the task.
'Somewhere,' she cried, 'there must be blossom blowing.'
It seems my lady wept and the troll swore
By Heaven he hated tears: he'd cure her spleen--
Where she had begged one flower he'd shower fourscore,
A bunch fit to amaze a China Queen.
Cold fog-drawn Lily, pale mist-magic Rose
He conjured, and in a glassy cauldron set
With elvish unsubstantial Mignonette
And such vague bloom as wandering dreams enclose.
But she?
Even yet, perhaps, a trifle piqued--who knows?
[From The Pier-Glass (1921)]
