My Flower-pot / Child's Picture Book

I love the flowers, the fragrant flowers! They’re fairy things to me; They seem like angels sent to bless, And teach of purity.
There is beauty in flowers When kissed by the showers That fall in the bowers Of gardens so fair, When music is telling In notes that are swelling, And love is excelling, Aloft in the air.
Birds now are singing, Deep valleys are ringing, And harmony bringing Content to the mind. Flowers are caressing, And sending a blessing To all now confessing To be to them kind.
Minds soon are roving To lands that are blooming Afar from the glooming Of woe and despair, Saying, “Come to the bowers Filled with rare flowers— Nature’s kind dowers, Free as the air.”
Come, my love, and do not spurn From a little flower to learn: See the lily on the bed, Hanging down its modest head; While it scarcely can be seen, Folded in its leaf of green.
Yet we love the lily well, For its sweet and pleasant smell, And would rather call it ours Than many other gayer flowers; Pretty lilies seem to be Emblems of humility.
’Tis not beauty that we prize,— Like a summer flower it dies.
But humility will last, Fair and sweet, when beauty’s past; And the Saviour, from above, Views a humble child with love.
Come, my love, and do not spurn From a little flower to learn: Let your temper be as sweet As the lily at your feet; Be as gentle, be as mild: Be a modest, simple child.
There is a sweet, a lovely flower, Tinged deep with faith’s unchanging hue, Pure as the ether in its hour Of loveliest and serenest blue.
The streamlet’s gentle side it seeks, The silent fount, the shaded grot; And sweetly to the heart it speaks— Forget-me-not, forget-me-not.
See the flowers, how they grow; Hear the winds that gently blow. Bird and insect, flower and tree, Know they must not idle be; Each has something it must do— Little children, so must you.