Grand Haven Daily Tribune May 22, 1903

Flowers.

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By David Fletcher Hunton.

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Thank God for flowers, and for the joy

With which they have enriched my life!

My love for them has kept my soul

From much o’ sorrow and of strife.

Their voiceless lips have taught me much

Of nature and her love sublime;

And of the love and power of Him

Who loves the beautiful and prime.

There’s poetry in every leaf,

In every calyx, anther, stem;

There’s beauty on each corol sweet,

And ever stamen is a gem.

There’s romance in that flower of love,

The full blown royal “Bridal Rose;”

There’s splendor in its cloistered breast,

And heavenly fragrance where it grows!

I love them for they waft me back

To youth and manhood’s early prime:

When every petal, bud and bell

Then thrilled my soul with thoughts sublime!

They whisper sweetly of a realm

Beyond our planet’s outer rim,

Where all the children of our God,

Will spend eternity with Him!

And in that realm of grand design,

Far, far beyond earth’s sunless tomb,

May not these flowers which charm us here

In fadeless beauty bud and bloom?

O what ineffable delight,

To pluck from Eden’s jasper sea,

The water lily, which has smiled

In other scenes less fair, on me!

If life were ebbing fast away

And I were called at last to die,

Their memr’y sweet would come to me,

As gently as an angel sigh!

The rich can pile their tables high

With costly plate and sparkling wine,

While I can dress my humble board,

With flowers made by hand divine!

O may the flowers I’ve loved so well

Bloom near my grave when I am dead;

And round the place where I repose

A rare and lasting fragrance shed:

Aye! lovely flowers, if you can come,

And on my tomb your sweet lips press,

It will not seem like death at all,

To sleep amid such loveliness!

Grand Haven, Mich., May, 1903