Welcome back to Flower Poetry Fridays with Mrs. Sigourney. Each Friday a new poem will be posted from her The Voice Of Flowers.
THE ROSE-GERANIUM.
COMPANION OF A VOYAGE.
Rose-Geranium Flowers
HOLD up thy head, thou timid voyager !
Vex’d by the storm-clouds, as they darkly
roll,
And by the fiercely tossing waves, that stir
Thy slender root, and try thy trembling soul.
Sad change from thy sweet garden, where the
dew
Each morning glisten’d in thy grateful eye,
And where no rougher guest thy bosom knew,
Than quiet bee, or gadding butterfly.
It grieves me sore to see thy leaflets fade,
Wearing the plague-spot of the ocean spray,
And know what trouble I for thee have made,
Who bore thee from thy native haunt away ;
Though, in thy life, I seem to hold the chain
Of home and its delights, here on the pathless
main.
Taking a flower on a voyage sounds like a lovely way to bring a little piece of home with you while traveling.
I liked the way the Mrs. Sigourney spoke about the trembling flower being afraid of being out of her element.
Rocking and rolling on the high seas and feeling the ocean’s spray might be a welcome delight for many of us, but think about it for a flower, as if it had a mind and soul. Wouldn’t it be so scary to somebody who has roots that held them fast to the ground?
Her selection of a Rose-Geranium, Pelargonium graveolens, was a wonderful choice of companion. Its strong rose scent would enliven any state room and serve to be a reminder of home.
Come back next Friday for the next installment in our series of flower poems from Mrs. Sigourney’s The Voice of Flowers, “The Emigrant Daisy”.
