Poems of Optimism
singer who passed into glory, With songs all unfinished, is lingering near And trying to tell me the rest of the story, Which I am too dull of perception to hear.

I hear not, I see not; but feel the sweet swinging And swaying of metre, in sunlight and shade, The still arch of Space with such music is ringing As never an audible orchestra made. The moments glide by me, and each one is dancing; Aquiver with life is each leaf on the tree, And out on the ocean is movement entrancing, As billow with billow goes racing with glee.

p. 113With never a thought that is worthy the saying, And never a theme to be put into song, Since early this morning my mind has been straying, A vagabond thing, with a vagabond throng, With gay, idle moments, and waves of the ocean, With winds and with sunbeams, and tree-tops and birds, It has lilted along in the joy of mere motion, To songs without music and verse without words.

p. 113

p. 114MY FLOWER ROOM

p. 114

My Flower Room is such a little place, Scarce twenty feet by nine; yet in that space I have met God; yea, many a radiant hour Have talked with Him, the All-Embracing-Cause, About His laws. And He has shown me, in each vine and flower Such miracles of power That day by day this Flower Room of mine Has come to be a shrine.

Fed by the self-same soil and atmosphere Pale, tender shoots appear Rising to greet the light in that sweet room. One speeds to crimson bloom; One slowly creeps to unassuming grace; One climbs, one trails; One drinks the light and moisture; One exhales.

p. 115Up through the earth together, stem by stem Two plants push swiftly in a floral race; Till one sends forth a blossom like a gem; And one gives only fragrance In a seed So small it scarce is felt within the hand. Lie hidden such delights Of scents and sights, When by the elements of Nature freed, As Paradise must have at its command.

p. 115

From shapeless roots and ugly bulbous things What gorgeous beauty springs! Such infinite variety appears A hundred artists in a hundred years Could never copy from the floral world The marvels that in leaf and bud lie curled. Nor could the most colossal mind of man Create one little seed of plant or vine Without assistance from the First Great Plan; Without the aid divine.

Who but a 
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