Plant a Garden

Photo by Anton Deev

If your purse no longer bulges
and you’ve lost your golden treasure,
If at times you think you’re lonely
and have hungry grown for pleasure,
Don’t sit by your hearth and grumble,
don’t let mind and spirit harden.
If it’s thrills of joy you wish for
get to work and plant a garden!

If it’s drama that you sigh for,
plant a garden and you’ll get it.
You will know the thrill of battle
fighting foes that will beset it.
If you long for entertainment and
for pageantry most glowing,
Plant a garden and this summer spend
your time with green things growing.

If it’s comradeship you sigh for,
learn the fellowship of daisies.
You will come to know your neighbor
by the blossoms that he raises;
If you’d get away from boredom
and find new delights to look for,
Learn the joy of budding pansies
which you’ve kept a special nook for.

If you ever think of dying
and you fear to wake tomorrow;
Plant a garden! It will cure you
of your melancholy sorrow.
Once you’ve learned to know peonies,
petunias and roses,
You will find every morning
some new happiness discloses.

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About Edgar Guest

Edgar Guest (1881-1959) was born in Birmingham, England, but moved with his family to Detroit, Michigan when he was ten years old. At age fourteen he started working as a copy boy at the Detroit Free Press, where his first poem was published at age seventeen, and where he continued to work for more than sixty years. He went on to become a reporter and columnist, whose poetry and columns were featured in hundreds of newspapers around the country. He married Nellie Crossman in 1906 and the couple had three children. Edgar is said to have written some 11,000 poems during his lifetime, most of them topical, upbeat verse. Critics sometimes derided his work, but America adored him. He was known as the "People's Poet," served as Michigan's poet laureate, hosted a long-running radio show and TV show, and published more than twenty books of poetry.
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