The Voices of the Flowers.
If you lie with your ear to the soft
green earth,1
When the rain and the sunshine fall,2
You can hear the flowers in their gay glad mirth3
To each other whisper and call.4
For hush’d, like an infant in sleep, they lie5
In their moist cool cells below,6
Aweary of hearing the wind’s bleak sigh,7
And the falling of the snow.8
But when spring comes down to the earth, and her
feet9
feet9
Sends a thrill through Woodland and plain,10
And the clouds weep tears that are soft and sweet,11
But which we miscall the rain,12
Then they waken up with a light in their look,13
And in low sweet whispers they cry—14
“ Sisters, a murmur is heard in the brook,15
And sunshine is seen in the sky.16
“ It is time we should burst through the young green
earth,17
earth,17
As the stars through the heavens by night,18
That the young and the old may rejoice in our birth,19
And we in the calm sweet light.”20
Then one said, “ Sisters, where shall we grow ?21
I shall grow by the side of the stream,22
And all day long I will blossom and blow,23
Till the dews fold me up in a dream.”24
“ And I,” said another, “ will bloom by the way25
Where the children go in a band ;26
They will stop for a moment their gladsome play,27
And touch my lips with their hand.”28
“ I will peep from the long rich grass,” said one,29
“ When the meadows bow to the wind,30
And will catch like dewdrops the fairy tone31
Of the music it leaves behind.”32
“ And I,” said one, “ in some garden rare,33
Where my fairer sisters abide ;34
And it may be that I may be twined in the hair35
Of the maid as she blooms into bride.”36
Then a sweeter voice held the rest in thrall—37
“ O sisters, what things ye have said !38
I shall grow in the sweetest spot of all—39
On the graves of the calm pure dead.40
“ They will know that I blossom above their dust,41
And will yearn, in their silent abode,42
For the grand Resurrection to crown their trust43
In the love and the promise of God.”44
Thus the flowers whisper, and if you lie45
When the rain and the sunshine fall,46
You will hear them question and make reply47
If your heart is at one with all.48