Little Yellow Buttercup

A Buttercup
by Anonymous

 A little yellow buttercup
Stood laughing in the sun;
The grass all green around it,
The summer just begun;
Its saucy little head abrim
With happiness and fun.

Near by—grown old, and gone to seed—
A dandelion grew;
To right and left with every breeze
His snowy tresses flew.
He shook his hoary head, and said:
“I've some advice for you.

“Don't think because you're yellow now
That golden days will last;
I was as gay as you are once,
But now my youth is past.
This day will be my last to bloom;
The hours are going fast.

“Perhaps your fun may last a week,
But then you'll have to die.”
The dandelion ceased to speak—
A breeze that capered by
Snatched all the white hairs from his head
And wafted them on high.

His yellow neighbour first looked sad,
Then, cheering up, he said:
“If one's to live in fear of death,
One might as well be dead.”
The little buttercup laughed on,
And waved his golden head.

I walked through a beautiful sea of buttercups the other day in Norwood Green. Do you remember, as a child, holding a buttercup flower under someone's chin to see if they liked butter?

Click here to read more about buttercups and here to learn more about the folklore associated with them and other wild flowers.

Click here to watch The Foundations in 1969 singing 'Build Me Up Buttercup'; here for 'I'm Called Little Buttercup' from Gilbert and Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore; and here for Randy Newman's 'My Little Buttercup'.

Writing Prompts:

• Do you have a memory of buttercups from your childhood? Write about it. 
• Read the poem above. Are you like the dandelion, living in fear, or the buttercup laughing and waving your head?!
  
• Some consider the buttercup a weed. Write about weeds and whether you love them or hate them.
• Imagine you are a buttercup. Write about your day.