Welcome back to Flower Poetry Fridays with Mrs. Sigourney. Each Friday a new poem will be posted from her The Voice Of Flowers.
CHANGES DURING SICKNESS.
I BOW’D me down amid the race of life,
And let the fever-spirit have its will.
With wrench and screw the tissued nerves it
tried,
And held from sleep the strained and burning
eye,
So that the soft-voic’d watcher’s toil was vain.
Two weeks passed by, and then His healing
love,
Who knows the weakness of this mortal frame
Which He hath fashioned, bade me take my
place
Again among the living.
Strange and new
Seemed every wonted object. All around
Change had been busy. Boldly up had sprung,
Even to the eaves, the rich Convolvolus,
So long with patience water’d, even and morn.
Its clustering floral bells, profoundly blue,
Or crimson, fleck’d with white, thro’ the broad
leaves,
Were redolent of beauty. So, methought
I’d close my books, and study with the flowers,
Where sang the bee ; and where, for aught I
knew,
Might winged angels hover.
Closely hid
In a dense grape-vine, was a cunning nest,
Which oftimes I had visited, to strew
Crumbs for the brooding mother. On that
morn
When fell disease stalk’d near me with his
chain,
Intent to smite me, tho’ I knew it not,
I had withdrawn those curtaining leaves, and
met
Her clear, bright eye.
Now, all were fled and gone !
Yes, those small eggs with gladness and with
song
Had travell’d forth to swell the tide of love
That bathes Creation in its boundless sea.
Oh ! ever-watchful goodness, that doth work
Whether we sleep, or, ‘neath the weight of
pain,
Bow down in dreamy reverie ; while time,
Unnoted, glideth onwards, nest and flower
Confess thee. Shall the thoughtless human
heart,
So much indebted, e’er thy praise forget,
Whether beneath the sunshine or the cloud,
It takes its lesson from thy page divine ?
The lesson seems to be that while you’re sick or ‘not living’ time still moves on…”while time, Unnoted, glideth onwards, nest and flower Confess thee. ”
Little birds find how to use their wings and they fly the nest with a happy song.
Flowers bloom and share their glory. The Convolvolus that she speaks of represents the bindweeds and Morning Glory.
Don’t be sad and gloomy, for the world will pass you by as time ticks on…and on.
Smile! And be Thankful!
Come back next Friday for the next installment in our series of flower poems from Mrs. Sigourney’s The Voice of Flowers, “To The Misletoe at The Tomb of Washington”.