Now torn and scatter’d, as he needs no grave;
Each little dust covers a little part;
So lies he nowhere, and yet often buried.”
“CONSIDER THE LILIES.”
St. Matthew vi. 28.
Vulgar utilitarianism—for there is a vulgar and shallow phase of it, as well as a scientific and a misrepresented one—can surely find little to its fancy (but then it has no fancy) the invitation, or monition, even though uttered in the Sermon on the Mount, of “Consider the lilies.” Why consider them, it would fain object, seeing that they toil not, neither do they spin? But that is the very reason for considering them. They are clothed from above with surpassing beauty, without taking thought for themselves; so clothed, not for utilitarian ends, except in the large sense that the dulce too is utile, that a thing of beauty is a joy for ever; and that is undeniably to be of some “use” in the world.
Herein lies the simple answer to the query in the laureate’s poem,—
“Oh, to what uses shall we put the wildweed flower that simply blows?
And is there any moral shut within the bosom of the rose?