NOTE: This is another one of my old favorites, recently found. Enjoy! Dori 🙂

I said: “Let me walk in the fields.”

He said: “No, walk in the town.”

I said: “There are no flowers there.”

He said: “No flowers, but a crown.”

I said: “But the skies are black;

There is nothing but noise and din.”

And He wept as He sent me back –

“There is more,” He said; “there is sin.”

I said: “But the air is thick,

And fogs are veiling the sun.”

He answered: “Yet souls are sick,

And souls in the dark undone!”

I said: “I shall miss the light,

And friends will miss me, they say.”

He answered: “Choose tonight

If I am to miss you or they.”

I pleaded for time to be given.

He said: “Is it hard to decide?

It will not seem so hard in heaven

To have followed the steps of your Guide.”

I cast one look at the fields,

Then set my face to the town;

He said, “My child, do you yield?

Will you leave the flowers for the crown?”

Then into His hand went mine;

And into my heart came He;

And I walk in a light divine,

The path I had feared to see.

A little seed lay in the ground,

And soon began to sprout;

“Now which of all the flowers around,”

It mused, “shall I come out?

“The lily’s face is fair and proud,

But just a trifle cold;

The rose, I think, is rather loud,

And then, its fashion’s old.

“The violet is very well,

But not a flower I’d choose;

Nor yet the canterbury bell,–

I never cared for blues.

“Petunias are by far too bright,

And vulgar flowers beside;

The primrose only blooms at night,

And peonies spread too wide.”

“And so it criticized each flower,

This supercilious seed;

Until it woke one summer hour,

And found itself a weed.

By Mildred Howells, in St. Nicholas

(Taken from Friends Intelligencer and Journal)