Both of these excellent poems use the central conceit of
comparing the speaker to a flower to describe their relationship with God and the way
that God tends and nurtures them, as if he were a gardener. In "Unprofitableness," for
example, the poem begins with the speaker thanking God for his visit, which came at just
the right time, because at that stage his "bleak leaves hopeless hung, Sullied with dust
and mud." God's glance and visit have made the speaker "flourish," now, however, and
"Breathe all perfumes and spice." The poem then moves on to dwell on the way that God is
engaged in a profoundly "unprofitable" task, as he "a thankless weed doth dress" when
the speaker can give so little in return. The conceit of a flower therefore helps the
speaker to meditate upon the grace of God and his amazing restorative
energies.
"The Flower," by George Herbert is a similar
meditation on God's resotrative powers, man's frailty and sinful nature and God's grace.
However, one difference is the way that this poem focuses on the way in which God has
the power to both restore and to wither:
These are thy wonders, Lord of
power,
Killing and quickening, bringing down to
hell
And up to heaven in an
houre.
If God restores, he
also can "kill," and therefore is not a God whose grace we can treat with contempt. It
is the final stanza that concludes this meditation on God's wonders and his amazing
power, both to punish and to bless:
These are thy wonders, Lord of
love,
To make us see we are but flowers that
glide:
Which when we once can finde and
prove,
Thou hast a garden for us, where to
bide.
If "Unprofitableness"
is therefore based on God's grace and a hymn of praise to the way that he spends so much
time on "unprofitable" humans, then "The Flower" is much wider in its scope, looking at
the way in which viewing ourselves as a flower should help to give us a correct and
humble view of ourselves and not to take for granted God's love and
grace.
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