'Twas seed-time in Heaven; the angel whose care
Is for Eden's blossoms, - that angel more fair
Than all her fair sisters, twin spirits of air, -
That angel whose footsteps, wherever they tread,
Spring up into blossoms blue, yellow, and red, -
That angel whose tear-drops, wherever they fall,
Give birth to white lilies, the fairest of all, -
That angel whose breath is the perfume of flowers,
Had spent all the jewel-gemmed paradise hours
Of the roseate morn where beauties unfold
In calyx of crimson and purple and gold.

Beside the great portals she paused and looked through,
Down, down the vast distance of star-lighted blue, -
Beheld the gray rocks without beauty or bloom,
And sighed for earth's children away in the gloom.

'No beauty or bloom have the children of woe;
No brightness, no sweetness; my hand will bestow
One heaven-born seed for their garden below,'

She said as she loosened her girdle to find
One seed which was fairest, and best of its kind.
Her eager hand trembled, the girdle slipped through
Her rosy-tipped fingers, and down through the blue,
Down, down the vast distance, her golden seeds flew.

Some caught in the crevice of rocks, others fell
In lone desert places, by wayside and dell;
On hills and in valleys, in forest and glen,
To gladden and brighten the journeys of men

At the portals of heaven, with sorrowful face,
The little flower-angel looks out into space
In search of her treasures. Her tears, as they fall,
Find all her lost seedlings, and water them all.