Blue thou art, intensely blue; Flower, whence came thy dazzling hue?

Beside the brook and on the umbered meadow, Where yellow fern-tufts fleck the faded ground, With folded lids beneath their palmy shadow The gentian nods in dewy slumbers bound.

Thou blossom! bright with autumn dew, And colour's with the heaven's own blue, That openest when the quiet light Succeeds the keen and frosty night.

And the blue gentian-flower, that, in the breeze, Nods lonely, of her beauteous race the last.

Nearest the throne itself must be The footstool of humility.

Fairest and best adorned is she Whose clothing is humility.