The Poetical Works of Robert Montgomery :: :: University of Virginia Library

The Lord, who once celestial radiance threw
Round the gay lilies in their regal dress,
Hath long receded from the church's view,
And Earth seems flow'ring in her loneliness:

But still the Saviour's cry, “Behold!” remains
Deep in the ear, and haunts the spring-toned breeze,
Where pilgrim Thought along secluded plains
Roams by the flowers, beneath romantic trees.

Seems it, as though a consecration hung
On the rich bloom of each innocuous flower,
And grace beyond what minstrel Lyres have sung,
Since Christ arrayed them with a teaching power.

And they are beautiful as infant-eyes,
Sparkling, or pale, when pensive, blue, or mild;
Now, softly vocal, while the air-tone sighs,
And then, in breezy motion dancing wild.

And, like fair visions haunting Memory's dream,
So to the serious mind may flowers impart
In pale seclusion by some lisping stream,
A graceful moral to the feeling heart.

For oft like infants nursed on nature's breast
The dawning buds come forth in sun and dew,
Rosy as Childhood in rich beauty drest,
When life enchants it with a fairy hue:

And beaming Girlhood, in its beauteous grace,
Seems like a new-blown flower in bloom to be,
While fancy muses on that vernal face,
And thinks, how soon that spring of heart will flee!

And have not sentiment and soul-breathed song
From flowers a classic inspiration caught?—
Their spells of beauty to the bard belong,
And grace his lines with many a lovely thought.

In hoar'd cathedrals, solemn, huge, and grand,
Where tombs have tongues, and eloquently preach,
Who has not felt the wingèd mind expand
Soaring to realms beyond mere earth to reach?

There has Devotion traced those marble flowers
Which still to fancy wear a stony bloom
That triumphs o'er decay's funereal powers,
On hero's cenotaph, and martyr's tomb.

And since all matter should to mind attest
Deep truths, significant of sacred worth,
Are not the lilies, by their Maker drest,
Types of the pure, unstain'd by sordid earth?

Emblems of those, the gentle and the good,
Plants of the Spirit, who delight to grow,
And in the hush of thinking solitude
Nurse the meek grace His will and word bestow?

There is an air of chastity and calm
Breathed from the pureness of a vestal flower,
Soft as a breath from Eden's bloom and balm
That shames coarse passion in its rudest hour.

And when on couch of languishment there lies
Some pale-worn victim of disease and pain,
Oft can a flower relume the sunken eyes,
As though they gazed on garden-walks again.

Or, when the boy by Circumstance is led
From the green hamlet where young life began,
And 'mid the large loud city round him spread,
For fields and groves, views artificial man,

If some chance-flow'ret near his path should lie,
How does it thrill association's law,
Making the heart for home and country sigh,
And tread the landscape rosy Childhood saw!

So have I mark'd, amid some fever'd court
Crowded with dens where degradations hide,
Where passions vile with poverty resort,
And orphan'd babes have hunger'd, wept, and died,

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Some lonely window, with a sickly flower
Pining as pale, still struggling to endure,
And thrill'd to think how Nature's lovely power
Could thus the heart of wretchedness allure!

Contemn not this: for in bleak haunts of woe
Undying thoughts of sylvan life remain;
And many a poor man, while his tear-drops flow,
Hails a sad violet through a broken pane.

We bless Thee, then, Thou Lord of flowers and trees!
Bought by Whose Blood, the whole creation lives;
Glowing with health, or martyr'd by disease,
Hail, to each beauty Thine atonement gives!

And when affection seeks the solemn grave
To sprinkle flowers upon the guarded mould,
Where in chill darkness sleep the perish'd brave
Whose memories beautify the days of old,

O Thou! the Resurrection and the Life,
Thy viewless presence grant at this deep hour,
And to sad mourners, with dejection rife,
Reverse the emblem of that votive flower.

“Behold the lilies!”—Lord, we would obey;
But still they wither, while their charms delight;
And in the lustre of their rich array
Lurks the cold shadow of a coming blight:

But thou, believer! not, like flowers, wilt fall
Ne'er from the dust in blooming grace to rise;
But when for thee, Earth's citing trump shall call,
Eternal spring shall fascinate thine eyes.

Celestial beauty, undecaying bloom
Clothes the pure flesh with more than lilies wear;
And thou, transplanted from the wintry tomb,
Wilt bud in heaven, and flower with glory there.