Poems (Jackson)/Transplanted

by Helen Hunt Jackson

TRANSPLANTED.

HEN Christ, the Gardener, said, "These many years
 Behold how I have waited
For fruit upon this barren tree, which bears
  But leaves With unabated
Patience I have nurtured it; have fed
  Its roots with choicest juices;
The sweetest suns their tender warmth have shed
  On it; still it refuses
Its blossom; all the balmiest summer rain
  Has bathed it; unrepaying,
Still, its green and glittering leaves, in vain
  And empty show arraying,
It flaunts, contented in its uselessness,
  Ever my eye offending.
Uproot it! Set it in the wilderness!
  There no more gentle tending
Shall it receive; but, pricked by nettle stings,
  And bruised and hurt, and crowded
By stones, and weeds, and noxious growths of things
  That kill, and chilled 'neath shrouded
And sunless skies, from whose black clouds no rain
  Shall fall to soothe its anguish,
Bearing the utmost it can feel of pain,
  Unsuccored, it shall languish!"

When next across the wilderness Christ came,
  Seeking his Royal Garden,
A tree stood in his pathway, all aflame,
  And bending with its burden
Of burnished gold. No fruit inside the wall
  Had grown to such perfection!
It was the outcast tree! Deprived of all
  Kind nurture and protection,
Thrust out among vile things of poisonous growth,
  Condemned, disgraced, and banished,
Lonely and scorned, its energies put forth
  Anew. All false show vanished;
Its roots struck downward with determined hold,
  No more the surface roaming;
And from th' unfriendly soil, a thousand-fold
Of yield compelled.
Of yield compelled.The coming
Of the Gardener now in sweet humility
  It waited, trusting, trembling;
Then Christ, the Gardener, smiled and said:
Then Christ, the Gardener, smiled and said:"O tree,
This day, in the assembling
  Of mine, in Paradise, shalt thou be found.
    Henceforth in me abiding,
More golden fruit shalt thou bring forth; and round
    Thy root the living waters gliding
Shall give the greenness which can never fade.
While angels, with thy new name sealing
  Thee, shall come, and gather in thy shade
Leaves for the nations' healing!"