Page:Scenes and Hymns of Life.pdf/57

Child. What, the pale star-shaped flower, with purple streaks
And light green tendrils?

Father. Thou hast marked it well.
Yes, a pale, starry, dreamy-looking flower,
As from a land of spirits!—To mine eye
Those faint wan petals—colourless—and yet
Not white, but shadowy—with the mystic lines
(As letters of some wizard language gone)
Into their vapour-like transparence wrought,
Bear something of a strange solemnity,
Awfully lovely!—and the Christian's thought
Loves, in their cloudy penciling, to find
Dread symbols of his Lord's last mortal pangs,
Set by God's hand—The coronal of thorns—
The cross—the wounds—with other meanings deep,
Which I will teach thee when we meet again
That flower, the chosen for the martyr's wreath,
The Saviour's holy flower.