Poems (Clark)/A Flower Lesson

by Annie Maria Lawrence Clark

A FLOWER LESSON

"Pretty pink Hollyhock, how do you do?
 How I wish I could have a chat with you:
Pray, why do you bow your lovely head,
So near the edge of the garden bed?
Is it because you have tears to shed
 At bidding the Summer adieu?

"All the Spring and Summer, straight and tall,
 Taller by far than the garden wall,
Wreathed and crowned with your blossoms gay,
You have looked like a queen in your bright array,
But now you seem suddenly old and gray;
 I don't understand it at all."

Was it the sound of the passing breeze,
 Tossing the scarlet maple leaves?
Or did I indeed hear a soft voice say,
"I have tried ever since the coming of May,
To make this spot in the garden gay;
 For my duty, you know, is to please.

"And, now as the sunny days grow brief,
 And I watch the fading of blossom and leaf,
I know that my duties are done,
And that, when the pale November sun,
Shall tell us the reign of the cold is begun,
 I shall yield to that mighty chief.

"But 'tis only my very outside that dies,
 For snug and warm in the ground there lies
The very germ of my life,
Wrapped away from the wintry storm and strife,
All ready, when Spring shall again be rife,
 For a Summer of use to arise."

So a beautiful lesson I learned one day,
 And I thought when I shall be old and gray,
If I can look back on the days that are gone,
And see, like my flowers, my duties well done,
I shall watch in peace life's setting sun,
 And rejoice to pass away.