Poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans

The Lilies of the Field

Flowers! when the Saviour's calm benignant eye
Fell on your gentle beauty; when from you
That heavenly lesson for all hearts He drew,
Eternal, universal, as the sky;
Then, in the bosom of your purity
A voice He set as in a temple-shrine,
That life's quick travellers ne'er might pass you by,
Unwarn'd of that sweet oracle divine.
And though too oft its low, celestial sound,
By the harsh notes of work-day care is drown'd,
And the loud steps of vain, unlistening haste;
Yet the great Ocean hath no tone of power
Mightier to reach the soul in thought's hush'd hour,
Than yours, meek lilies! - chosen thus and graced. 

1. Joan of Arc in Rheims
2. The Music of St. Patrick’s
3. The Grave of a Poetess
4. The Rock of Cader Idris
5. Eryri Wen

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