title: Theresa's Flower
author: Clement Clarke Moore
date: 1846 (25 Dec.)
source: Museum of the City of New York, Poetry Manuscript Book of Clement C. Moore, accession 54.331.1 (7662), notebook pp. 111-112; transcribed by Mary S. Van Deusen, henrylivingston.com, fetched via the Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/2024/https://www.henrylivingston.com/xmas/livingstonmoore/mooretheresasflower.htm
form: iambic tetrameter/trimeter sestets (aabccb)
lines: 24
attribution: certain
notes: MS heading: 'Written for my daughter Theresa, to send to a friend with a flower. Decr. 25, 1846.' Spoken in the daughter's voice; the flower is a Daphne. Serious-tender. Site line count 24 agrees. Not listed in the site's Jackson phoneme data set (data/favoredphonemes/moore/), consistent with Jackson (2016) reportedly treating the MCNY notebook poems as held-back Moore texts; not independently verified against Jackson's book.

While lib'ral wealth, from door to door,
Sends splendid gifts, and sheds its store
In many a golden shower,
A gentle maid presumes to send
An humble off'ring to her friend;
'Tis but a modest flower.

For, to the feeling tender heart,
A trifle may more joy impart
Than wealth could e'er bestow.
No brightest gem, no gold refin'd,
Is worth a gift that wakes the mind
To friendship's fervid glow.

Let then this short-lived Daphne share,
My gentle friend, thy fost'ring care
Till all its bloom be past.
And, for the sake of her who gives,
Still let it, when no more it lives,
Within thy mem'ry last.

But ere, like all, it close in death,
When thou perceive its fragrant breath
Steal softly on the air,
Oh! think it wafted by thy friend,
While striving thro' the sky to send,
For thee her fervent prayer.