Cicely Mary Barker's Shirley Poppy Fairy

'We were all of us scarlet, and counted as weeds,
When we grew in the fields with the corn;
Now, fall from your pepper-pots, wee little seeds,
And lovelier things shall be born!

You shall sleep in the soil, and awaken next year;
Your buds shall burst open; behold!
Soft-tinted and silken, shall petals appear,
And then into Poppies unfold-

Like daintiest ladies, who dance and are gay,
All frilly and pretty to see!
So I shake out the ripe little seeds, and I say:
"Go, sleep, and awaken like me!"

Shirley Poppy

or Field Poppy (Papaver rhoeas)

A native of Europe and North Africa, the shirley poppy has been cultivated and naturalized in North and South America.  It thrives on cultivated land and along roadsides. Sew seed in spring or autumn, may self seed.