An ache in every limb,
Fell influenza having slain
My customary _vim_,
I mused, disconsolate, about
The pattern of my pall,
When lo! I heard a step without
And Thomson came to call.

"Your ruddy health," I told him, "mocks
A hand too weak to grip
The tea-cup with its captive ox
And raise it to my lip;"
To which he answered he had come
To bring for my delight
Red posies of geranium
And roses pink and white.

'Twas kind of Thomson thus to seek
To mitigate my gloom,
But why did he proceed to speak
Of how he'd reared each bloom,
Telling in language far from terse
On what his blossoms fed
And how he made the greenfly curse
The day that it was bred?

He told me how he rose at dawn
To titivate the land
('Twas here that I began to yawn
Behind a courteous hand),