Poetry Archives

My pretty flower,
How cam’st thou here?
Around thee all
Is sad and sere,—
The brown leaves tell
Of winter’s breath,
And all but thou
Of doom and death.

The naked forest
Shivering sighs,—
On yonder hill
The snow-wreath lies,
And all is bleak—
Then say, sweet flower,
Whence cam’st thou here
In such an hour?

No tree unfolds its timid bud—
Chill pours the hill-side’s lurid flood—
The tuneless forest all is dumb—
Whence then, fair violet, didst thou come?

Spring hath not scattered yet her flowers,
But lingers still in southern bowers;
No gardener’s art hath cherished thee,
For wild and lone thou springest free.

Thou springest here to man unknown,
Waked into life by God alone!
Sweet flower—thou tellest well thy birth,—
Thou cam’st from Heaven, though soiled in earth!