Fresh Flowers: A Prayer of Spring

As I picked the first spring flowers from my gardens today I remembered this poem by Robert Frost. I found it this evening and reread it. Frost is one of my favorite poets. He can take a subject all of us understand and weave his words in such a way that makes us think about it in a slightly different way. That is another reason I like poetry.

A Prayer in Spring

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfil. 

Robert Frost