Bonnie Blue Flower, The

Nay! Only a weed! You are nothing worth!
     Withered and broken, and well-nigh dead, 
     You may cumber no longer my garden-bed;
Go, add your mite to the nurturing earth!
In this damp, dark corner decay unseen,
     To feed the roots of the shrub whose sap 
     Creeps steadily up from its winter nap, 
Into clusters of purple and tufts of green.

Flung forth forsaken, and left to rot 
     Under the lilac’s noon-twilight, 
     The poor little outcast, lost to sight, 
Lay dreaming of things the noon knew not!
It thrust its little brown fingers deep
     In the cool, moist earth, new strength to win;
     And often a sunbeam fay crept In 
With a tender kiss, as it lay asleep.

It opened its palms to catch the dew
     That slid down warm from the leaves above, 
     And felt the breath of a great world-love 
Steal in when the soft June breezes blew!
Flung forth to die? But it answers, "Nay, 
     The cool, damp shadows have been my boon:
     I had surely perished in sultry noon,
Ere my fibres had clung to the soothing clay." 

With a deep, strong yearning pulse that sent 
     The crystal lymph to its farthest cell, 
     Sunward and lifeward it struggled well, 
Till a long, lithe stem into full day went;
And, lo! as the bloom-fays rocked and swung 
     On its slender arm, a bonny blue flower, 
     Like a fleck of sky, dropped down at the hour 
Of mid-day hush, to that lithe arm clung!

Ha, wise, wee darling! better than I 
     You knew the way to the hidden springs 
     Of life and hope, and the faith that brings 
Its own fulfilling when death seems nigh!
In a tongue my heart has understood, 
     You tell me, pet, that despair is wrong;
     That life is strong when the will is strong;
And the shadow, grief, in its hour is good.

You bring me the gospel of Faith and Hope, 
     To never surrender, never say die!
     To strive for the sunlight, look to the sky, 
And catch the hue of its stainless cope.
When so cast off by a careless hand,
     Your sweet forgiveness, so sweetly given,
     Has made your bloom as the flowers of heaven
That over the River of Life expand!