WHO heeds thee, poor flower? No fragrance is thine,
No sunbeam has dress’d thee with hues of delight,
Thou hast found not a branch to o’ershade thee by day,
Or shelter thy form from the blast of the night.
Thou bloom’st in the morning, but no one regards,
Thou diest at eve, unregretted, unseen;
No eye would have miss’d thee, no bosom have felt
One pleasure the less if thou never hadst been.
Conceal’d in the herbage, thy delicate stem
Is hourly crush’d by the passenger’s tread,
And the brute, as he carelessly grazes the herb,
Still presses his foot on thy impotent head.
None seek thee, none know thee, none cull thee with care,
To bloom on the bosom in life’s festive hour;
E’en the bee, as he flutters from blossom to blossom,
Ne’er settles his wing on thy honeyless flower.
Sweet emblem of mercy! the tear of emotion
Will fall when I see thee, but falls not for thee;
The ills that my fancy would picture as thine,
Are the ills that another has suffer’d for me.
Yes, Jesus, my Saviour, they tell me of thine,
Neglected, despised, like the weed thou hast made,
Thy people or saw not, or saw thee with scorn,
In a robe of unloveliness meekly array’d.
The deep shades of sorrow went over thy brow,
But none mark’d the tear that thy innocence shed;
The clouds of affliction assembled their thunders,
But none felt the shock when it burst on thy head.
E’en the flower of the garden is nurtur’d and rear’d,
And guarded from evil with delicate care;
But thou, like the wild weed, despised of all,
Wert known but to Him who implanted thee here.
The vilest of mortals might crush thee to earth,
Cold insult might wound thee, and no one was mov’d;
All beside thee had something to cherish, to soothe,
And Thou, only Thou, wert unsought, unbelov’d!
But sweet was the incense that flow’d from thy lips,
In mercy for those who regarded thee not;
Each tear-drop that fell on thy bosom contain’d
A balm for our sorrows when thine were forgot.
And as yonder fair flower, unvalued, unclaim’d,
Thus freely in paths unforbidden has grown,
So free is thy mercy, so priceless thy love,
Whoever will take thee, may call thee his own.
(Caroline Fry)
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Based on Topics: Love Poems, Life Poems, Night Poems, Sadness Poems, Flowers Poems, Jesus Christ Poems, Morning Poems, Garden Poems, Forgiveness Poems, Emotions Poems, Weeds PoemsBased on Keywords: diest, nurtur, implanted, tear-drop, grazes, unvalued, ershade, unforbidden, unregretted, unbelov, honeyless