They positively insist upon the
very refinement of purity, as you look at them.
Did you ever see a pond-lily?--not the miserable draggled
green-and-mud-colored buds which enterprising boys bring into the cars
for sale; but the white water-lily, floating on the silent brooks, or
far out in the safe depths of the mill-ponds. The "Autocrat" knows what
pond-lilies are, having visited Prospero's Isle and seen the pink-tinged
sisterhood of a certain mere that lies embosomed in its hills. But to
know them, you must hunt for them,--tramp off to the distant stream, and
then, not stand on the bank and wish and sigh, but off hose and shoon,
and, careless of water-snake and snapping-turtle, wade in up to their
virgin bower, and bear off the dripping, fragrant prize. None but the
brave deserve--lady or lily.
But if the stream be too deep and wide, and the lilies are anchored far
out among their broad pads,--a floral Venice, with the blue spikes and
arrowy leaves of the pickerel-weed for campaniles and towers,--there
are yet "lilies of the field" over which you may profitably meditate,
remembering that Solomon Ben-David was not so arrayed.
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