THE POETRY OF FLOWERS. 
26 
THE LILY OF THE VALLEY. 
BY EISHOP MANT. 
Fair flower, that, lapt in lowly glade, 
Dost hide beneath the greenwood shade, 
Than whom the vernal gale 
None fairer wakes, on bank, or spray, 
Our England’s lily of the May, 
Our lily of the vale ! 
Art thou that “ Lily of the field,” 
Which, when the Saviour sought to shield 
The heart from blank despair, 
He show’d to our mistrustful kind, 
An emblem of the thoughtful mind 
Of God’s paternal care? 
Not this. I trow; for brighter shir.o 
To the warm skies of Palestine 
Those children of the East: 
There, when mild autumn’s early rain 
Descends on parch’d Esdrela’s plain, 
And Tabor’s oak-girt crest, 
More frequent than the host of night, 
Those earth-born stars, as sages write, 
Their brilliant disks unfold; 
