Page 171 of 172 OLD ENGLISH POETRY - Complete Poetical Works

"And its pure virgin limbs to fold

In whitest sheets of lilies cold,"

and these things being its "chief" delights--and then the pre-eminent beauty and naturalness of the concluding lines, whose very hyperbole only renders them more true to nature when we consider the innocence, the artlessness, the enthusiasm, the passionate girl, and more passionate admiration of the bereaved child:

"Had it lived long, it would have been

Lilies without, roses within."

[Footnote 1: "The Book of Gems." Edited by S. C. Hall.]

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		"The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do." Galileo Galilei