The Language of Roses, A Poem

I
What roses speak I do not know
When in the dark they breathe and grow,
But when I wake, this nighttime work
In imperceptibility
Has brought new growth I cannot see
'Til time has shown it unto me.

II
I'd like to think that flowers too
Know how it feels to fight the dark
That dwells within each living breast;
For ev'ry step toward heav'n we take
The darkness takes away,
And brings
Us down again. Then like the rose
When morning comes, I seem unchanged.
So day by day, the rose and I
We stretch our wings that we might fly,
Then drawing breath, turned heavenward
Like Daedalus with ill-starred son,
I step and beat my wings but can't
Find strength to soar towards lands afar;
Collapsed upon the ground I cry
And in the darkness quietly
With sun and moon and star forgot
Alone I cry, My Father God!
My dreams like tears fall unfulfilled
To barren soil,
Far below
What far-flung fancies hoped for me.

III
Then in the darkness silently
I dream of what tomorrow brings
When rosy dawn with pallor pale
To bring to light my errant flight
Breaks o'er my earthly misery.
I Ic'rus like, the morning's son
So fallen from that glorious sphere
Reflect how that in distant years
When once we walked with Angles I
Did dwell with Gods in Paradise
But now thrust down I have become
A shadow slight of what I longed
To be when light poured over me.
Yet care not, Sol's chariot rose
And scorched me with his eye;
The petals on the flower wilt
Too parched for thirst to thrive,
Like one who dreams and waking finds
The nighttime specters mocked his slake-
So what I would I could not dare
And what I hate, e'en that I do,
'Til in the cool of the eve
A spring bursts forth from near a Rock
And water clear toward flower and me
Begins its tortuous tortured path.

IV
Redeemed by living water I
Rise up upon my knees and cleanse
My tried and tired limbs of filth
Accrued by toil in Stygian night.
Then sweetest sleeps sweeps over me
And resting from all care I dream
And in the dark I seem to hear
The rose once wilted whisper soft:

V
The education of the man
Comes not by will, nor yet by plan;
It comes in shafts of blinding light
That split the gray, unwelcome blight.
For joy and pain, swift death, sweet life
Are not such ends as you suppose.
For love by hate is known to man;
It takes great dark to see the light.
So tarry not when you have fall'n
Let not your stumble be your grave
For man was never e'er so near
That God whose image now he bears
Save when unblinking to the dark
He soars triumphant not with fear
But courage taken, love's fair twin,
Will win the victor's crown.
Within these journeys death awaits,
Fear not, play on, and tempt the fates.

VI
Awake I rise, Aurora's glow
On me has shone; the way to go
I see is not less trying than
What once I feared when once alone.
The rose now drawing clearer strength
Has ris'n again with former grace
And I a hapless passerby
From water clear and fairer sky
Draw breath anew and to the East
Now turn and find that strength renewed
From trials of yesterday has grown.
No effort spent is wasted, but
Soon comes around again, and as the disc
Of Sol should climb, I'll hie me home
Again. And I am brought to say:

VII
O night, O gloom of Tenebras
No blackness yet will conquer me,
For I am king o'er my own life
The Captain of my destiny;
But like that fabled mariner
The winds and sea will choose for me
My daily circumstance,
Yet I have power to fight or fall,
Progress or lay me down.
For every wind and current fair
Or storm or doldrum dire is but
The sea of opportunities
From whence I chart my daily course.
The path does not the journey make,
Nor storms the tempered mood,
But my direction, my own choice
Determines my progression here.
For he who falls and he who lives
Falls not nor lives but for himself.

VIII
So daily I choose my weary course
And daily my breath renew,
The looking back I see my trail
In dawn's pale hue revealed,
Where struggling out my misery
I moved, and yet I never saw
That ev'ry challenge I had faced
Was what had forged in me anew
The hope, the strength, to carry on
When all about in foul despair
Conspire with Hell to murder me.

IX
With every beat of aching wing
I near my greatest unseen goal,
And when the darkness gripping me
In sadness' paltry gloom does loom
I tell myself those healing Words
Remembered always in my breast
For light of dawn dispels at once
The darkest shade of hell
And I will fight till once called home
God speeds me thither on my way,
'Til I do speak what roses know
In the dark as they toil and grow.