POETRY COLLECTION

Our Wreath
of Rose Buds
Corrine

Meet the Poet

Nothing is known about Corrinne, the pseudonym of a girl in Oklahoma,
except that she was a student at the Cherokee Female Seminary, a
boarding school for girls opened by the Cherokee tribal government in
1851. Corrinne’s poem “Our Wreath of Rose Buds” was published in 1854.

BACKGROUND
This poem was originally published in the first edition of Cherokee Rose
Buds, a newspaper of student writing in Cherokee. The written form of
Cherokee was invented by one man: Sequoyah. He could not read or
write English but was intrigued by written and printed communication,
and he worked to devise a Cherokee alphabet. He was ridiculed and
thought to be practicing witchcraft, but when his work was completed
in 1821, people found his system of 86 symbols easy to use, and within
years thousands of Cherokee had learned to read and write.

I.
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NOTES
We offer you a wreath of flowers
Culled1 in recreation hours,
Which will not wither, droop, or die,
Even when days and months pass by.

II.
5 Ask you where these flowers are found?
Not on sunny slope, or mound;
Not on prairies bright and fair
Growing without thought or care.

1 culled (kuhld) v. selected from a group.

UNIT 4 Independent Learning • Our Wreath of Rose Buds IL4

 III.
NOTES
No, our simple wreath is twined2
10 From the garden of the mind;
Where bright thoughts like rivers flow
And ideas like roses grow.

IV.
The tiny buds which here you see
Ask your kindly sympathy;
15 View them with a lenient3 eye,
Pass each fault, each blemish by.

V.
Warmed by the sunshine of your eyes,
Perhaps you’ll find to your surprise,
Their petals fair will soon unclose,
20 And every bud become—a Rose.

2 twined (twynd) v. twisted, plaited, curled.

3 lenient (LEEN yuhnt) adj. gentle, mild, tolerant.

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IL5 UNIT 4 Independent Learning • Our Wreath of Rose Buds

 POETRY COLLECTION

Fantasy
Gwendolyn Bennett

Meet the Poet

Gwendolyn Bennett (1902–1981) was born in Texas but grew up on a
Nevada Paiute Indian reservation; in Washington, D.C; and in Brooklyn,
New York. After studying art in Paris, Bennett became a major figure in the
Harlem Renaissance as an artist, poet, fiction writer, and journalist.

BACKGROUND
In this poem, Gwendolyn Bennett uses colors to evoke feelings, and
her palette changes from the second stanza to the third, from purples
to blue and green. Bennett also employs a different rhyming scheme in
each stanza—the first is ABAB, the second ABAAB, and the third AABB.

I sailed in my dreams to the Land of Night

NOTES
Where you were the dusk-eyed queen,
And there in the pallor1 of moon-veiled light
The loveliest things were seen . . .
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5 A slim-necked peacock sauntered2 there

In a garden of lavender hues,
And you were strange with your purple hair
As you sat in your amethyst chair
With your feet in your hyacinth shoes.

10 Oh, the moon gave a bluish light

Through the trees in the land of dreams and night.
I stood behind a bush of yellow-green
And whistled a song to the dark-haired queen . . .

1. pallor (PAL uhr) n. paleness.

2. sauntered (SAWN tuhrd) v. walked in a slow and relaxed manner.

UNIT 4 Independent Learning • Fantasy IL6