"The Bad Dandelions"

The Bad Dandelions

A million dandelions

        Came out one April day,

And rambled up and down the hill,

        To laugh and play.

They shook their golden tresses,

        And flung their kisses free,

And flirted with the sun and wind,

        Outrageously.

They were so much admired,

        They were so rich in gold,

They flaunted up and down the hill,

        So proud and bold,

That the envious swamp-cabbage,

        That poor old “touch-me-not,”

So sour and discontented with

        Her lowly lot,

Held up a flaming candle,

        To peep and watch and spy,

And all who understood her speech

        Could hear her cry:—

“There’ll come a retribution,

        ‘Twill shock the very town;

Your pride will blow your boasted gold

        To common silver ‘down’!”

But the saucy dandelions

        Fled laughing up the hill,

And, it is said in Flower-Land,

        They’re laughing still.

"The Bad Dandelions" as it appears in Ella Higginson's The Voice of April-Land (1903).