Flowers! when the Saviour’s calm, benignant eye
Fell on your gentle beauty—when from you
That heavenly lesson for all hearts he drew,
Eternal, universal, as the sky—
Then, in the bosom of your purity,
A voice He set, as in a temple-shrine,
That life’s quick travellers ne’er might pass you by
Unwarn’d of that sweet oracle divine.
And though, too oft its low, celestial sound
By the harsh notes of work-day Care is drown’d,