Here With My Flowers by C.J Dennis

An old man of 85, Mr George Cecil Morris, a market gardener, of Mona Vale, N.S.W., on being told of his succession to the title and estates of a baronet, is reported to have said recently: "I don't want a title. I have seen enough of titles. I don't want estates. I want to be left here with my flowers."

I have drunk of life, of the sweet and the bitter,
   Dreamed of broad acres and gold and glittering gauds,
And the eyes of my youth found lure in the spurious glitter;
   But my flowers are no frauds.
For the sown seed, and the young shoot, and the glory
   Of blossom that comes to greet returning Springs
Hold no false promise in their recurring story.
   These be true things.

Now I am old and have done with the dream of greatness,
   Of preferment's doubtful glamor and man-wrought dowers,
Of the pomp of place and a courtier's stiff sedateness.
   Leave me here with my flowers,
And the brave smell of the brown earth in the furrow,
   And a blown rose, and lilac after rain;
Where wrens sing and the humble field-mice burrow,
   Let me be lain.

I have found dignity in a tall bloom nodding,
   Jewels in hedgerows aglow from their dewy bath.
These be God-given things where I go plodding
   Adown my garden path.
And the sun shines, and the rain falls, and perfection
   Springs for a season; even as it dies
Giving fresh promise of glad resurrection.
   All else is lies.

First published in The Herald, 8 October 1937