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O flowers, sweet and goodly flowers ! 
Ye were loved in times of old; 
) And better worth were crowns of flowers, 
Than crowns of beaten gold! 
They wore ye at the marriage feasts, 
When merry pipes were blown; } 
And o’er their most beloved dead, i 
Fit emblems, were ye strewn! Hi 
The poets ever loved ye,— | ‘ 
| For in their soul upwrought, (a 
Like seas, and stars, and mountains old, i 
! Enkindling lofty thought! | | 


But—greater far than all— 
Our blessed Lord did see i 
h How beautiful the lilies grew, } 
In the fields of Galilee, 

Consider now these flowers, He said ; 
They toil not, neither spin,— 
And God himself the garment made, tat 
Which they are clothed in ; 

In perfectness of beauty, 
Each several flower is made ; 
And Solomon, in all his pomp, 
Was not like these arrayed ; 


