Flower o' the thorn :: :: University of Virginia Library

AGAINST my garden-wall,
Rooted in rockery earth, there stands at either end
A tangling mass of stems and branches, great and small,
With soot and smoke as black
As pitch and dead, 'twould seem, past Nature's might to mend.
Toward the grey cloud-rack
Of latter Winter's skies, austere and grim, it spires,
Barring the narrow band of colour in the West,
Where the drowsed wreck of Day sinks slowly to its rest.
A trellis-work of wires
It seems, blocked out in black against the sunset-fires.

Yet but a week or two,
And in the leafless stems the life once more will stir;
The veins, for Winter void, the sap will fill anew;
The grimy bark will first
Less black become, then brown by slow degrees; then here
And there 'twill cleave and burst
And let a bud or two, shy peeping fyorth, be seen;
Then more and more, in crowds, will peep and swell and break,
Till every branching twig towers up, for April's sake,
Toward the sky serene,
New-clad upon with leaves, a cloud of clustering green.

Nor yet by leaf alone
The ecstacy of life in their dead hearts reborn,
The rapture that the Spring excites in them, is shown.
Already, see, each spray
With other-fashion buds is thick; another morn,
And these, to welcome May,
Will wreathe themselves with pomp, like princes, till they stand,
The bright-robed harbingers and heralds of the Prime,
To usher in the feast of Life's refulgent time
And wave, on either hand,
Their white and purple plumes above the laughing land.

Nor yet with leaf and flower,
Lilacs, the May alone are you content to hail.
The ardour in your hearts, for hallowing of the hour
Of still-returning Spring,
For incense freely flung upon the vernal gale,
To every soul doth bring
The news of Winter sped and Summer drawing nigh.
Among the lesser scents, an anthem is your breath,
An organ-voice of balm, Life's victory over death
That celebrates, on high
Proclaiming hope reborn for all beneath the sky.

Dear exile of the East,
From Persia's plains, rose-, lys-, narcissus-, tulip-clad,
To our cold West, where Spring is only Winter ceased,
Transplanted with rude hand,
Small wonder 'twere if thou shouldst sullen be and sad,
In this our stranger land,
Where thou must needs, against thy nature and thy will,
Endure the Autumn's wet and wind, the Winter's cold,
Plagues to thy native plains unknown and skies of gold,
And pine, denying still
Thy flowers for us to yield, thy fragrance to fulfil.

Yet thou, fair tree, more kind
Than we who brought thee here in banishment to live,
Regrettest not thy hills and valleys, left behind
In Khorasan or Fars,
And setst thyself our wrong not only to forgive,
But, 'neath our Northern stars,
To flower and breathe for us thy fairest and thy best.
So, in the dewy days of Heaven-affected May,
In this our toiling town of soot and smoke, each way
With bloom thou brightenest
And cheer'st with breath of balm the city, East and West.

Thou to us men, indeed,
A lesson of content and kindness read'st and cheer.
Well might we learn from thee, if we would but have heed,
The days, when no suns shine
For us, when we from all must part that we hold dear,
To brook without repine,
The hours, when in our heaven the clouds of care are rife
And nothing comes to break the dark of our distress,
To fill with noble thoughts and deeds of kindliness
And cheer this world of strife
And sorrow with the flower and fragrance of our life.