Seward is doing at least two novel things in this poem: first, she is part of a revival of the sonnet form; second, she plays with the conventional poetic addresses to roses and turns her attention to a different red flower, the poppy — the source of opium, which was legal and widely available at the end of the eighteenth century.
The poem was probably written around 1789, but first appeared in print in Original Sonnets on Various Subjects; and Odes Paraphrased from Horace (1799), the source of this text.
| While Summer Roses all their glory yield | ||
| To crown the Votary of Love and Joy, | votary = someone devoted | |
| Misfortune’s Victim hails, with many a Sigh, | ||
| Thee, scarlet Poppy of the pathless field, | ||
| 5 | Gaudy, yet wild and lone; no leaf to shield | |
| Thy flaccid vest, that, as the gale blows high, | flaccid = drooping | |
| Flaps, and alternate folds around thy head.— | alternate = by turns | |
| So stands in the long grass a love-craz’d Maid, | ||
| Smiling aghast; while stream to every wind | aghast = shocked | |
| 10 | Her gairish ribbons, smear’d with dust and rain; | gairish = showy |
| But brain-sick visions cheat her tortur’d mind, | ||
| And bring false peace. Thus, lulling grief and pain, | ||
| Kind dreams oblivious from thy juice proceed, | oblivious = forgetful; juice = opium | |
| Thou flimsy, shewy, melancholy weed. | shewy = showy |