WILD FLOWERS GATHERED FOR MY WIFE.
Though these sweet flowers are in their freshest bloom,
They had a beauty as I gathered them
Which thine eye sees not. For with every one
New lustre in the varied colors shone,
A purer white melted beneath the eye,
A sweeter fragrance came from dew-gemmed leaves,
Advanced in beauty as I thought of thee.
Thou seest that they grew wild in wood and fields
Teachers of love and wisdom. Some I found
In deep pine shades, where the sun's straggling beams
Through bending boughs may reach them.
Holier rays
Through deeper shades can reach the broken heart,
Through deeper shades can foster heavenly growth
Of beauty for the everlasting fields;
Through more dense shades can reach the good unknown
To human fame, yet left to bless the world.
These flowers and leaves that ripen unobserved
But for our eyes, had withered with the frost,
And none had blessed God for their loveliness.
They give their little power unto the wind
To purify for men the air they breathe,—
Air wafted far by every rising breeze.
And so a myriad of the little deeds,
Done by the men that walk in Christ's blest steps,
Add health unto the living atmosphere
Where men breathe for the strength of highest life.
Deeds go out on a sea of human life,
And touch a myriad of the rolling waves,
Send the great sea a portion of unrest,
Which saves its surface from the mould of death.
These flowers are memories that I had of thee
During my wandering to the distant home,
Where sickness was, and many an anxious care,
Where there was need that Christ's work should be done.
Oh! if these paths we tread with our soiled feet,
On this world far from scenes where all is pure,
Our feet not yet in laver cleansed from soil,
In wave by angel stirred and all so bright,
Where gleams are on the waves from his own sun,
Are skirted with these fragrant beauteous forms,
What shall surround our path in Paradise?
Flowers have a language; so they choose to say.
Each speaks a word of pure significance.
Thus in the fields of nature we can print,
Where flowers shall be the type, a beauteous book—
With joyful eye can read the beauteous book.
With all my love of flowers, here is a lore
Which is to me unknown. I have to turn
Over the pages of that pictured book
To spell each letter as a little child.
But this I know, that none can e'er mean ill.
Flowers are too pure, as angels sowed their seed
On earth in pity for a burdened race.
And where their smiles have rested there came forth
These witnesses that men are not alone.
And also this is lore from nature's school—
That speak they as they may—whate'er they mean
Of faith to be unshaken through our life,
Of love that never wanes, true as the star,
They cannot speak of faith or tender love,
Which I—flower-bearer—do not speak to thee
In this my offering of far-gathered spoils.