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78 DROrS FROM FLORA’S CUP. 
TILE SMALL CELANDINE. 
WORDSWORTH. 
There is a flower, the lesser celandine, 
That shrinks, like many more, from cold and rain; 
And, the first moment that the sun may shine, 
Bright as the sun itself, 't is out again. 
When hailstones have been falling, swarm on 
swarm, 
Or blasts the green field and the trees distressed, 
Oft have I seen it muffled up from harm, 
In close self-shelter, like a thing at rest. 
But lately, one rough day, this flower I passed, 
And recognized it, though an altered form, 
Now standing forth an offering to the blast, 
And buffeted at will by rain and storm. 
I stopped, and said, with inly-muttered voice, 
‘ It doth not love the shower, nor seek the cold: 
This neither is its courage nor its choice, 
But its necessity in being old 
The sunshine may not bless it, nor the dew; 
It cannot help itself in its decay; 
Stiff in its members, withered, changed of hue.’ 
And, in my spleen, I smiled that it was gray. 
