 | Poems |  |
FLOWERS IN THE CITY.
Quiet children of the garden,
Nurtured by the gentle showers,
Gleams and shadows—tender flowers,
Never may the hard town harden
Me to what delights are ours
In your beauty, O ye flowers!
Nurtured by the gentle showers,
Gleams and shadows—tender flowers,
Never may the hard town harden
Me to what delights are ours
In your beauty, O ye flowers!
Have they torn you from your quiet
Shadowed haunts, so green and still,
Where delights your sweet hours fill,
Where the tawny bee runs riot
In your sweets at his wild will,
While his songs the glad hush fill!
Shadowed haunts, so green and still,
Where delights your sweet hours fill,
Where the tawny bee runs riot
In your sweets at his wild will,
While his songs the glad hush fill!
Strange seem here your pleasant faces,
Strange your beauty meets us here,
Startling us to sudden fear
That of nature's pleasant places,
Sights, and sounds, and scenes, once dear,
Life has grown forgetful here.
Strange your beauty meets us here,
Startling us to sudden fear
That of nature's pleasant places,
Sights, and sounds, and scenes, once dear,
Life has grown forgetful here.
Moiling on, alas! you find us,
Dulled to all that life should know,
Hardly knowing roses blow;
Well it is that you remind us
Nature blooms, while sad and slow,
From us here our lost years go.
Dulled to all that life should know,
Hardly knowing roses blow;
Well it is that you remind us
Nature blooms, while sad and slow,
From us here our lost years go.
Withered! ah, and we too wither
In these dim and leafless streets,
Where no glimpse of beauty meets
Our dulled hearts; oh, still come hither,
Bringing from your green retreats
Sense of quiet to these streets!
In these dim and leafless streets,
Where no glimpse of beauty meets
Our dulled hearts; oh, still come hither,
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Sense of quiet to these streets!
Sense of quiet—rest and stillness,
Till all but your sweets forgot,
Care's as if we knew it not;
And we wake, as if from illness,
To a healthful sense of what
God has given but man forgot.
Till all but your sweets forgot,
Care's as if we knew it not;
And we wake, as if from illness,
To a healthful sense of what
God has given but man forgot.
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