The Gardener's Prayer by Ruth Collie
"The Gardener's Prayer" is a short devotional poem in which the speaker addresses God directly, offering a tended garden as a plea and a proof of spiritual devotion. The speaker asks that the garden itself serve as an intercessor, a "gentle advocate," standing before God's throne on their behalf. Its fairness and orderliness become a confession: through the garden's "sweet serenity," the speaker admits to personal faults and a life that "has gone awry," contrasting human imperfection with the garden's disciplined beauty. The poem builds its argument through natural imagery arranged beneath "Your arch of sky" — soft wind, tall trees, bright blossoms, and grass are all described as striving to please God, mirroring the speaker's own effort to please a divine judge. The labor of gardening becomes a form of penance and purification: daily weeding stands in for the daily casting-away of sin, and the speaker asks to be judged "shriven," or absolved, on the strength of this diligent, patient work. Celestial and light imagery reinforces the poem's devotional tone: sunbeams are invited to "come to play" in the garden, moonbeams "stray" across its paths, and stars "look down from heaven," suggesting that the garden exists under continuous divine observation and, implicitly, divine approval. The garden is offered as "handiwork" — a deliberate echo of the idea that human cultivation, like divine creation, can be an act of worship and craftsmanship offered up for God's "delight." The poem closes on an image of white lilies standing "unafraid" within God's sight, a symbol of purity and confident faith rather than guilt or fear. In the final plea, the speaker asks the flowers themselves — and by extension the whole garden — to intercede and request pardon on their behalf, closing the circle of the poem's central conceit: that a well-tended garden can plead a soul's case before God, translating the discipline and beauty of cultivation into spiritual grace and forgiveness.
By Ruth Collie · Genre: Prayer, Devotional Poetry, Religious Poetry