LILY OF THE VALLEY. 
91 
THE CHILD AND LILY. 
BRYANT. 
Innocent child and snow-white flower! 
Well are ye paired in your opening hour, 
Thus should the pure and the lovely meet, 
Stainless with stainless, and sweet with sweet. 
White, as those leaves just blown apart, 
Are the folds of thy own young heart; 
Guilty passion and cankering care 
Never have left their traces there. 
Artless one ! though thou gazest now 
O’er the white blossoms with earnest brow, 
Soon will it tire thy childish eye, 
Fair as it is, thou wilt throw it by. 
Throw it aside in thy weary hour, 
Throw to the ground the fair white flower, 
Yet, as thy tender years depart, 
Keep that white and innocent heart. 
THE LILY OF THE VALLEY. 
CROLY. 
White bud ! that in meek beauty so dost lean, 
The cloistered cheek as pale as moonlight snow 
Thou seem’st beneath thy huge high leaf of green, 
An Eremite beneath his mountain’s brow. 
White bud ! thou’rt emblem of a lovelier thing,— 
The broken spirit that its anguish bears 
To silent shades, and there sits offering 
To Lleaven, the holy fragrance of its tears. 
