The Flower (excerpts)
Who would have thought my shriveled heart
Could have recovered greenness? It was gone
Quite underground; as flowers depart
To see their mother-root, when they have blown;
Where they together
All the hard weather,
Dead to the world, keep house unknown.
These are thy wonders, Lord of power,
Killing and quickening, bringing down to hell
And up to heaven in an hour;
Making a chiming of a passing-bell,
We say amiss,
“This or that is”:
Thy word is all, if we could spell …
And now in age I bud again,
After so many deaths I live and write;
I once more smell the dew and rain,
And relish versing: O my only light,
It cannot be
That I am he
On whom thy tempests fell all night.
These are thy wonders, Lord of love,
To make us see we are but flowers that glide:
Which when we once can find and prove,
Thou hast a garden for us, where to [a]bide.
Who would be more,
Swelling through store,
Forfeit their Paradise by their pride.
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This article is from Christian History magazine #119 The Wonder of Creation. Read it in context here!
By George Herbert
[Christian History originally published this article in Christian History Issue #119 in 2016]
George Herbert (1593–1633) was an Anglican priest and poet.Next articles
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