| 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. |
| The ore within the mountain mine Requireth none to grow; Nor doth it need the lotus flower To make the river flow. |
| The clouds might give abundant rain The nightly dews might fall; And the herb that keepeth life in man Might yet have drunk them all. |
| 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 much more care for him! |
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— MARY HOWITT.
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