Flood-Tide Of Flowers

Description

Known mostly as an educator and clergyman, Henry Van Dyke was also an appreciated poet most famous for writing the lyrics for Beethoven’s Ode to Joy and a popular short story writer at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. Van Dyke was trained in theology and in literature and was known as the chairman of the committee that prepared the text of The Book of Common Worship, the first printed Presbyterian liturgy in 1906.

Flood-Tide of Flowers is one the Van Dyke’s shorter poems, written in the Netherlands, where he served as an ambassador after his former classmate, Woodrow Wilson was elected President of the United States. The poem starts with an image characteristic of the end of winter – the snow is melting and everything is watery gray and pale green. With the change of the season, however, a flood of color inundates the world, with plants striving to reach the sky and to blossom, filling the empty gardens and the land. The first flower to appear is the crocus; then, the scilla makes its appearance, followed closely by hyacinths and tulips. Each of them brings a bright and beautiful patch of color, transforming the grey winter landscape into a rainbow-colored sea. The poem ends on Easter Day, when all the spring flowers are at their most beautiful and every heart is filled with glee.

Van Dyke wrote numerous other short poems of similar intensity – his poem entitled Life praises a simple and hopeful attitude towards the twists and turns of life and, in Gratitude, he expresses his happiness, contentedness and gratefulness to God for the simple things in life such as the food on the table. His longer poems express similar feelings and ideas such as Music or God of the Open Air.
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