Classic Poem

At the back of the flower-bed
I find a washed-out flake of cardboard—
An imitation daffodil.
And I remember, with a little sickness in my heart,
That when the children
Had gaily picked most of those new trembles of April
I bade them fabricate facsimile daffodils
With cardboard and crayon
And stick them in the ground in place of the ravished ones.
I wanted them to learn that beauty
Once plucked up, can't quite be replaced.
“Old enough to know better,” I told them sternly—
Ah, poor fool,
As though anyone ever was!