Ere the adventurers, nicknam’d Plantagenet,
Buckled the helm on, their foes to dismay,
They pluck’d a broom-sprig which they wore as a badge in it,
Meaning thereby they would sweep them away,
Long the genista shall flourish in story,
Green as the laurels their chivalry won;
As the broom-sprig excited those heroes to glory,
May the gorse-plant encourage our foxes to run.
Held by Diana in due estimation,
Bedeck with a gorse-flower the goddess’s shrine;
Throughout the wide range of this blooming creation,
It has but one rival, and that one the vine,
Pluck me then, Bacchus, a cluster and, squeezing it,
Pour the red juice till the goblet o’erflows;
Then in the joy of my heart, will I, seizing it,
Drink to the land where this Evergreen grows.
R E Egerton Warturton