"Ode to the Flowers" by Horace Smith
Transcription of the Poem Day stars that ope your eyes with man’s to twinkle From rainbow galaxies of earth’s creation And dew drops on her lowly altars sprinkle As a libation. Ye matin worshippers who bending lowly Before the uprisen sun, God’s lidless eye Throw from your chalices a pure and holy Incense on high Ye bright mosaics that with storied beauty The floor of nature’s temple tessellate, What numerous emblems of instructive duty Your forms create Neath cloistered boughs each floral bell that swingeth Tolls perfume on the passing air Makes sabbath in the fields, and ever ringeth A call to prayer. Not to the domes where crumbling arch and column Attest the feebleness of mortal hand But to that fane most catholic and solemn Which God hath plann'd. To that cathedral boundless as our wonder Whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon supply Whose choir the winds and waves, whole organ thunder Whose dome the sky There as in solitude and shade, I wander Thro the green aisles or stretched upon the sod Awed by the silence reverently ponder The ways of God. Floral apostles that in dewy splendor Weep without woe and blush without a crime Oh may I deeply learn and ne’er surrender Your lore sublime. Your voiceless lips O flowers are living preachers Each cup a pulpit ev’ry leaf a book Supplying to my fancy numerous teachers From lowliest nook. “Thou wert not Solomon” the lilies cry in all thy glory “Array’d in robes like ours How vain your grandeur, Ah how transitory Are human flowers In the sweet pictures Heavenly artist With which thou paintest nature’s wide spread hall. What a delightful lesson thou impartest Of love to all Nor useless are ye flowers tho’ made for pleasure Blooming o’er field and wave, by day and night From every source your sanction bids me treasure Harmless delight. Ephemeral sages! what instructors hoary For such a world of thought could furnish scope Each fading calyx a “memento mori” Yet fount of hope Posthumous glories, angel like collection Upraised from seed or bulb interred in earth Ye are to me a type of resurrection And of second birth. Were I Oh God in churchless lands remaining Far from all voice of teachers or divines My soul should find in flowers of thy ordaining Priests, sermons, shrines.” Horace Smith. Born in London 1779. | Biography of Horace Smith Description of the Poem's Formal Elements Explication/Analysis of the Poem |