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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE USE OF FLOWERS, by MARY HOWITT Poem Explanation Poet's Biography First Line: God might have bade the earth bring forth Last Line: Will care much more for him! Alternate Author Name(s): Botham, Mary Subject(s): Flowers; Holidays; Trees | |||
GOD might have bade the earth bring forth Enough for great and small, The oak-tree and the cedar-tree, Without a flower at all. We might have had enough, enough For every want of ours, For luxury, medicine, and toil, And yet have had no flowers. Then wherefore, wherefore were they made, All dyed with rainbow light, All fashioned with supremest grace, Upspringing day and night: -- Springing in valleys green and low, And on the mountains high, And in the silent wilderness Where no man passes by? Our outward life requires them not, -- Then wherefore had they birth? -- To minister delight to man, To beautify the earth; To comfort man, -- to whisper hope, Whene'er his faith is dim, For who so careth for the flowers Will care much more for him! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE PROBLEM OF DESCRIBING TREES by ROBERT HASS THE GREEN CHRIST by ANDREW HUDGINS MIDNIGHT EDEN by JOSEPHINE JACOBSEN REFLECTION OF THE WOOD by LEONIE ADAMS THE LIFE OF TREES by DORIANNE LAUX THE FAIRIES OF THE CALDON LOW; A MIDSUMMER LEGEND by MARY HOWITT |
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