Their seed the sowers scatter
Behind them as they go.
Poor lads, ’tis little matter
How many sorts they sow,
For only one will grow.
The charlock on the fallow
Will take the traveller’s eyes,
And gild the ploughland sallow
With flowers before it dies,
But twice ’twill not arise.
The stinging-nettle only
Will aye be found to stand:
The numberless, the lonely,
The filler of the land,
The leaf that hurts the hand.
That thrives, come sun, come showers;
Blow east, blow west, it springs;
It peoples towns, and towers
About the courts of Kings,
And touch it and it stings.