Marigold Poems

Table of Contents

1. Marigold

   by Hilda Conkling

   Marigold, marigold,
   Where are you going?
   Have you a plan? Can you not tell me?
   I should like to know!
   There are lots of places to wander,
   There is a brook needing a visitor,
   A robin needing a friend.
   You must not be lonely:
   You belong to nature as I do!
   You have a frank little way of staring . . .
   I am curious about you!
   The blue sky hangs over you and me . . .
   The sun's rays fall on us both . . .
   Why not be happy
   On this wonderful earth?
   Marigold, answer!
   I tell you all my thoughts
   But you have not said a word!
   (It was then she said softly
   "I have many friends,
   But you are my best!"
   

2. Marigolds

   by Bliss Carman

   
   

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   The marigolds are nodding;
   I wonder what they know.
   Go, listen very gently;
   You may persuade them so.
   

   Go, be their little brother,
   As humble as the grass,
   And lean upon the hill-wind,
   And watch the shadows pass.
   

   Put off the pride of knowledge,
   Put by the fear of pain;
   You may be counted worthy
   To live with them again.
   

   Be Darwin in your patience,
   Be Chaucer in your love;
   They may relent and tell you
   What they are thinking of.
   

3. Marigolds

   by Bliss Carman

   
   

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   With a fork drive Nature out,
   She will ever yet return;
   Hedge the flowerbed all about,
   Pull or stab or cut or burn,
   She will ever yet return.
   

   Look: the constant marigold
   Springs again from hidden roots.
   Baffled gardener, you behold
   New beginnings and new shoots
   Spring again from hidden roots.
   Pull or stab or cut or burn,
   They will ever yet return.
   

   Gardener, cursing at the weed,
   Ere you curse it further, say:
   Who but you planted the seed
   In my fertile heart, one day?
   Ere you curse me further, say!
   New beginnings and new shoots
   Spring again from hidden roots.
   Pull or stab or cut or burn,
   Love must ever yet return.
   

4. Marigold

   by Bayard Taylor

   
   

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   Homely, forgotten flower,
   Under the rose's bower,
   Plain as a weed,
   Thou, the half-summer long,
   Waitest and waxest strong,
   Even as waits a song
   Till men shall heed.
   

   Then, when the lilies die,
   And the carnations lie
   In spicy death,
   Over thy bushy sprays
   Burst with a sudden blaze
   Stars of the August days,
   With Autumn's breath.
   

   Fain would the calyx hold;
   But splits, and half the gold
   Spills lavishly:
   Frost, that the rose appalls,
   Wastes not thy coronals,
   Till Summer's lustre falls
   And fades in thee.
   

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