A MESSAGE

In a little broken flower-pot High up on a window-sill, ’Mid grime and gloom and squalor, Grew a golden daffodil. It seem’d in the gloom of the alley Like a sunbeam that had strayed Out from the light of heaven Into a land of shade. And close in a cage beside it A skylark sweetly sang Till all the narrow alley With its wild rapture rang. And one poor weary sinner Paused, as her wild eyes turned To where, on its humble altar, The flower-flame upward burned. And something stirred in her bosom; ’Twas the heart that had long lain dead, As the bird’s song rose from its prison In the shadow overhead. God’s angels are birds and flowers, And oh! methinks they preach At times with a power and pathos We men can never reach.