Day-stars! that ope your frownless eyes to twinkle From rainbow galaxies of earth’s creation, And dew-drops on her lonely altars sprinkle As a libation. Ye matin worshippers! who bending lowly Before the uprisen sun, God’s lidless eye, Throw from your chalices a sweet and holy Incense on high. Ye bright mosaics! that with storied beauty The floor of Nature’s temple tessellate, What numerous emblems of instructive duty Your forms create! ’Neath cloistered boughs, each floral bell that swingeth And tolls its perfume on the passing air, Makes Sabbath in the fields, and ever ringeth A call to prayer. Not to the domes where crumbling arch and column Attest the feebleness of mortal hand, But to that fane, most catholic and solemn, Which God hath planned; To that cathedral, boundless as our wonder, Whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon supply; Its choir the wings and waves, its organ thunder, Its dome the sky. There, as in solitude and shade I wander Through the green aisles, or stretched upon the sod, Awed by the silence, reverently ponder The ways of God, Your voiceless lips, O flowers! are living preachers, Each cup a pulpit, every leaf a book, Supplying to my fancy numerous teachers From loneliest nook. Floral apostles! that in dewy splendor “Weep without woe, and blush without a crime,” O, may I deeply learn, and ne’er surrender Your lore sublime! “Thou wert not, Solomon, in all thy glory, Arrayed,” the lilies cry, “in robes like ours! How vain your grandeur! ah, how transitory Are human flowers!” In the sweet-scented pictures, heavenly artist, With which thou paintest Nature’s wide-spread hall, What a delightful lesson thou impartest Of love to all! Not useless are ye, flowers! though made for pleasure; Blooming o’er field and wave, by day and night, From every source your sanction bids me treasure Harmless delight. Ephemeral sages! what instructors hoary For such a world of thought could furnish scope? Each fading calyx a memento mori, Yet fount of hope. Posthumous glories! angel-like collection! Upraised from seed or bulb interred in earth, Ye are to me a type of resurrection And second birth. Were I in churchless solitudes remaining, Far from all voice of teachers and divines, My soul would find, in flowers of God’s ordaining, Priests, sermons, shrines!
Hymn to the Flowers
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Day-stars! that ope your frownless eyes to twinkle From rainbow galaxies of earth’s creation, And dew-drops on her lonely altars sprinkle As a libation. Ye matin worshippers! who bending lowly Before the uprisen sun, God’s lidless eye, Throw from your chalices a sweet and holy...