The Poetry Corner

Perennials.

By Samuel Griswold Goodrich

Life is a journey, and its fairest flowers Lie in our path beneath pride's trampling feet; Oh, let us stoop to virtue's humble bowers, And gather those, which, faded, still are sweet. These way-side blossoms amulets are of price; They lead to pleasure, yet from dangers warn; Turn toil to bliss, this earth to Paradise, And sunset death to heaven's eternal morn. A good deed done hath memory's blest perfume, A day of self-forgetfulness, all given To holy charity, hath perennial bloom That goes, undrooping, up from earth to heaven. Forgiveness, too, will flourish in the skies Justice, transplanted thither, yields fair fruit; And if repentance, borne to heaven, dies, 'Tis that no tears are there to wet its root.