  There is a flower, a little flower, With silver crest and golden eye, That welcomes every changing hour, And weathers every sky. The prouder beauties of the field In gay but quick succession shine; Race after race their honors yield, They flourish and decline. But this small flower, to Nature dear, While moons and stars their courses run, Enwreathes the circle of the year, Companion of the sun. It smiles upon the lap of May, To sultry August spreads its charm, Lights pale October on his way, And twines December’s arm. The purple heath and golden broom On moory mountains catch the gale; O’er lawns the lily sheds perfume, The violet in the vale. But this bold floweret climbs the hill, Hides in the forest, haunts the glen, Peeps round the fox’s den. Within the garden’s cultured round It shares the sweet carnation’s bed; And blooms on consecrated ground In honor of the dead. The lambkin crops its crimson gem; The wild bee murmurs on its breast; The blue fly bends its pensile stem Light o’er the skylark’s nest. ’Tis Flora’s page; in every place, In every season, fresh and fair, It opens with perennial grace, And blossoms everywhere. On waste and woodland, rock and plain, Its humble buds unheeded rise: The rose has but a summer reign; The daisy never dies! Sculpture of Niobe shielding one of her children Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Niobe and Child. |
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