There... and Back Again. A Flower's Tale.

"I'm going out to clear the pasture spring.

I'll only stop to rake the leaves away

(And wait to watch the water clear, I may).

I shan't be gone long.  You come too."

-Robert Frost, "The Pasture"

My favorite tree!  an ancient European beech.

"There's not a flower on all the hills, -the frost is on the pane;

I only wish to live till the snowdrops come again."

Alfred Tennyson, "The May Queen"

"I wish the snow would melt and the sun come out on high-

I long to see a flower so before the day I die."

"The May Queen"

Lenten roses.

"My life flows on in endless song;

Above earth's lamentation

I hear the sweet tho' far-off hymn

That hails a new creation.

Thro' all the tumult and the strife

I hear the music ringing;

It finds an echo in my soul--

How can I keep from singing?"

-hymn, attr. Pauline T.

"What tho' my joys and comforts die?

The Lord my Savior liveth;

What tho' the darkness gather round?

Songs in the night He giveth."

"No storm can shake my inmost calm

While to that refuge clinging;

Since Christ is Lord of heav'n and earth,

How can I keep from singing?"

"My life is like a frozen thing,

No bud nor greenness can I see:

Yet rise it shall-- the sap of Spring;

O Jesus, rise in me."

Christina Rossetti, "A Better Ressurrection" 

There... and back again. A flower's tale.