Welcome back to Flower Poetry Fridays with Mrs. Sigourney. Each Friday a new poem will be posted from her The Voice Of Flowers.
FORGOTTEN FLOWERS.
TO A BRIDE. *We were left behind, but we would not stay,
We found your clue, and have kept the way,
For, sooth to say, the track was plain,
Of a bliss like yours in a world of pain.
How little we thought, when so richly we
drest,
To go to your wedding, and vie with the best,
When we made our toilette with such elegant
care,
That we might not disgrace an occasion so rare;
To be whirl’d in a coach at this horrible rate,
From county to county, and State to State !
Though we travel’d incog, yet we trembled
with fear,
For the accents of strangers fell hoarse on our
ear.We could hear every word, as we quietly lay,
In the snug box of tin, where they stow’d us
away,
And how would our friends at a distance have
known,
If charm’d by our beauty, they’d made us their
own ?
All unus’d to the taverns, and roads, as we
were,
Our baggage and bones were a terrible care,
But we’ve scap’d every peril, the journey is
o’er,
And hooded and cloak’d, we are safe at your
door.
We bring you a gift from your native skies,
The chrystal gem from Affection’s eyes,
Which tenderly trickles, when dear ones part,
We have wrapp’d it close in the rose’s heart ;
We are charged with a mother’s benison kiss ;
Will you welcome us into your halls for this?
We are chilled with the cold of our wintry
way,
Our message is done, we must fade away,
Let us die on your breast, and our prayer shall
be,
An Eden’s wreath for thy love and thee.
*An elegant bouquet, sent as a nuptial present, arrived just as
the bride had taken her departure for her new home in a neigh-
boring State, and were sent after her, in the stage coach, and
reached her without injury, in the depth of winter.
That’s great that the flowers got to the bride without harm. Good thing it was winter for the pretty gift wouldn’t have been the same in the middle of summer.
As I was reading this poem I imagined the flowers resting in the stagecoach — the tin box — for their rough ride to the next State. It must have cost a bit to have the flowers sent by horse and carriage, but they escaped every peril to complete the journey.
It’s a lovely passage that describes the gift:
We bring you a gift from your native skies,
The chrystal gem from Affection’s eyes,
Which tenderly trickles, when dear ones part,
We have wrapp’d it close in the rose’s heart ;
The bride will feel the flower giver’s affection while taking in the beauty and essence of the roses in the elegant bouquet.
Flowers speak to us, don’t they?
Come back next Friday for the next installment in our series of flower poems from Mrs. Sigourney’s The Voice of Flowers, “A Circle of Friends Compared to Flowers”.