Unknown writer

Pimpernel, the Shepherd’s Clock

Summary


"Pimpernel, the Shepherd's Clock" is a short poem about a merry maiden eager to go to the fair, who turns to a small flower for a weather forecast. She studies the clouds and asks the Pimpernel whether the day will stay fine. The flower has folded its tiny golden star into its coral cup, and her answer comes as a gentle rhyming warning. Light, musical and full of countryside charm, it asks whether she will heed the flower's advice.

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I’ll go and look at the Pimpernel
And see if she thinks the clouds look well.
For if the sun shine
And ’tis like to be fine,
I’ll go to the fair.

So Pimpernel, what bode the clouds in the sky;
If fair weather, no maiden so merry as I.

A maiden kneels by a closed pimpernel flower as storm clouds gather, illustrating the poem Pimpernel, the Shepherd's Clock.

Now the Pimpernel flower had folded up
Her little gold star in her coral cup.
And unto the maid
A warning she said:
“Though the sun seems down
There’s a gathering frown
O’er the checkered blue of the clouded sky
So, tarry at home! for a storm is nigh!”

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Credits

Unknown writer is the anonymous voice behind this traditional-style verse. The poem draws on the old country belief that the scarlet pimpernel closes its petals before rain, which earned it the nickname "poor man's weather-glass" and gave the poem its title.