Flower Poetry Fridays: The Garden and the Rain

Welcome back to Flower Poetry Fridays with Mrs. Sigourney. Each Friday a new poem will be posted from her The Voice Of Flowers.

THE GARDEN AND THE RAIN.

      ONE summer there had been a long drought,
made more painful by intense heat. Young
trees drooped ; many plants withered away ;
and the newly-mown grass crisped under the
feet as though it would never spring again.
    The master of a garden went forth at the sun-
set to water it. He was grieved to see how
his nurslings suffered. The slight branches
of the fruit-bearing trees were brittle, and broke
at the touch ; and the juiceless berries, shrink
ing away, tried to hide behind their yellow
leaves.
    The cisterns had become low, and the shal-
low brooklets were dry ; yet he gave water to
all his plants, as plentifully as he could. Still
they looked languidly at him, as if asking—
“Can you do nothing more to help us ?” Some
were perishing at the root, for the earth to
which they clung was like powder and dust.
    That night he awoke, and heard the blessed
rain falling ; at first, gently, and then with
power. He thanked the Merciful Giver, and
remembered the words, ” Can all the vanities
of the heathen give rain ? or can the heavens
without Him, give showers?”
    In the morning, when the rain had ceased,
he walked in his garden. He rejoiced, with
his plants and flowers, in the great goodness
of God. Their long season of sorrow had
made them dearer to him, as the parent loveth
the child who has been sick with a more ten-
der love.
    But now their time of suffering was past.
The grape-vine, having put on beauty for ashes,
wore at every point of its broad leaves a
pearl : and the honey-suckle, which was thought
to have been dying, was heard teaching its
young tendrils where to twine.
    The willow, whose long wands had turned
yellow, from disease, was weeping for joy.
Every infant blossom tried to tell of its new
happiness. Birds carolled from the nest, and
breathed into their silent praise a living soul.
    As he passed among the shrubbery, every
reaching bough shed on him a few chrystal
drops. They seemed to have saved for the
master a portion of what they best loved. The
statelier plants secreted a little moisture to
bestow upon the lowly. They had themselves
known want, and it seemed to have made them
more pitiful.
    He took in his hand the long leaves of a
lily, which, the day before, was ready to per-
ish, and it poured him one fragrant drop from
its cup of snow. And the rose-bud gave him,
from its heart, a chrystal gem that it had trea-
sured there, saying, ” Here ! here ! take this,
thou who didst minister unto me in my need,
and when I was thirsty, give me drink.”
    A forget-me-not, which he had removed a
few days before, from the dominion of a thorny
raspberry, had reserved a little rain, to bestow
upon the grass-cups at her side. As he bent
over her, she seemed to raise her blue eyes
and whisper, ” I was in prison, and ye came
unto me ; sick, and ye visited me.”
    Then the master of the garden said, ” Oh !
thankless human heart, that daily takest thy
water, and thy bread, yet yieldest scarcely one
smile unto God—perchance art angry because
of some smitten gourd, or some rose-leaf
doubled upon thy pillow—come forth, after the
shower of summer, and be abased.
    ” See, every leaf and bud share the pure
essence of their life with all around. The
sigh of the lightest breeze wakes their charity.
They refuse not, as long as any thing re-
mains to give. Hast thou no surplus drops of
Heaven’s bounty ? Hoard them not from thy
brother, the frail partaker of the same clay ;
but, instructed by the branches of thine own
planting, become wise unto eternal life.”

Well, this poem certainly has more than undertones of Christianity.

The life-giving water represents the Savior in Christ. Plants in the garden that were near death were saved by the life-giving rain.

Any gardener seeking water for their plants will be humbled by the rains of summer when everything is so parched and dry. How to be nourished!

The master gardener saw new wonders the morning after the rains finally came. Flowers seemed to offer smiles and the trees and shrubs shared their droplets of the life-giving rain. We should all be so thankful for every sip and mouthful!

Come back next Friday for the next installment in our series of flower poems from Mrs. Sigourney’s The Voice of Flowers, “Changes During Sickness”.

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