The Lily And The Bee

I Looked upon the lilies
When the morning sun was low,
And the sun shone through a lily
With a softened honey glow.
A spot was in the lily
That moved incessantly,
And when I looked into the cup
I saw a morning bee.
Consider the lilies!
But, it occurs to me,
Does any one consider
The lily and the bee?

The lily stands for beauty,
Use, purity, and trust,
It does a four-fold duty,
As all good mortals must.
Its whiteness is to teach us,
Its faith to set us free,
Its beauty is to cheer us,
And its wealth is for the bee.

Consider the lilies!
But, it occurs to me,
Does any one consider
The lily and the bee?

Henry Lawson

Henry Lawson was an Australian writer and poet. Along with Banjo Paterson, he is among the best-known Australian poets and fiction writers of the colonial period and is often called Australia's 'greatest short story writer'. His works frequently document the lives and struggles of rural and outback Australians. Lawson's own life was marked by hardship and struggles including impaired hearing and financial difficulties, which influenced his realist depictions of Australian life. Some of his notable works include 'While the Billy Boils' and 'In the Days When the World was Wide.'

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English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Water Lily

A lonely young wife
In her dreaming discerns
A lily-decked pool
With a border of ferns,
And a beautiful child,
With butterfly wings,
Trips down to the edge of the water and sings:
Come, mamma! come!
Quick! follow me,
Step out on the leaves of the water-lily!

And the lonely young wife,
Her heart beating wild,
Cries, Wait till I come,
Till I reach you, my child!
But the beautiful child
With butterfly wings
Steps out on the leaves of the lily and sings:
Come, mamma! come!
Quick! follow me!
And step on the leaves of the water-lily!

And the wife in her dreaming
Steps out on the stream,
But the lily leaves sink
And she wakes from her dream.
Ah, the waking is sad,
For the tears that it brings,
An...

Henry Lawson

The Lily Of St Leonards

Tis sunrise over Watson,
Where I sailed out to sea,
On that wild run to London
That wrecked and ruined me.

The beauty of the morning
On bluff and point and bay,
But the Lily of St Leonards
Was fairer than the day.

O Lily of St Leonards!
And I was mad to roam,
She died with loving words for me
Three days ere I came home.

As fair as lily whiteness,
As pure as lily gold,
And bright with childlike brightness
And wise as worlds of old.

Her heart for all was beating
And all hearts were her own,
Like sunshine through the Lily
Her purity was shown.

O Lily of St Leonards!
My night is on the track,
Tis well you never lived to see
The wreck that I came back.

A leaden sky shuts over
A sobbi...

Henry Lawson

The Water Lily

This lovely lily, so pure and white,
Seems covered o'er with celestial light;
As if it grew on the "Tree of Life,"
And not down here, in this world of strife;
Too pure for earth it now seems to be;
My queenly wife, it was meant for thee.

Its wax-like petals with graceful bend,
Drink in the sunbeams as they descend;
And lade with fragrance the heated air
As it floats around us everywhere;
And the world grows better by its advent,
This lovely lily, so kindly sent.

It rested once on its crystal bed;
Neither wind, nor wave, occasioned dread;
Admired by all as they passed it by,
Though the contrast oft produced a sigh;
In purer soil than affords this earth
This lovely lily must have had its birth.

Dive down in search, where the root is f...

Joseph Horatio Chant

The Clover

Some sings of the lily, and daisy, and rose,
    And the pansies and pinks that the Summertime throws
In the green grassy lap of the medder that lays
Blinkin' up at the skyes through the sunshiney days;
But what is the lily and all of the rest
Of the flowers, to a man with a hart in his brest
That was dipped brimmin' full of the honey and dew
Of the sweet clover-blossoms his babyhood knew?
I never set eyes on a clover-field now,
Er fool round a stable, er climb in the mow,
But my childhood comes back jest as clear and as plane
As the smell of the clover I'm sniffin' again;
And I wunder away in a bare-footed dream,
Whare I tangle my toes in the blossoms that gleam
With the dew of the dawn of the morning of love
Ere it wept ore the graves that I'm weepin' above.

James Whitcomb Riley

The Lilies

Consider the lilies. Luke 2:27.


Emblems of Christ our Lord,
Roses and lilies fair,
These flowers in His word,
His glory seem to share.

The lilies of the field,
Sweet teachers of the soul,
Which will their lessons yield
Long as the seasons roll,

They neither toil nor spin,
Exist without a care,
And yet no earthly king can win
A garb so chaste and rare.

Frozen, they burst to life,
To nature's minstrelsy
A resurrection type
Of immortality.

Nancy Campbell Glass

Flower-De-Luce

Beautiful lily, dwelling by still rivers,
    Or solitary mere,
Or where the sluggish meadow-brook delivers
    Its waters to the weir!

Thou laughest at the mill, the whir and worry
    Of spindle and of loom,
And the great wheel that toils amid the hurry
    And rushing of the flame.

Born in the purple, born to joy and pleasance,
    Thou dost not toil nor spin,
But makest glad and radiant with thy presence
    The meadow and the lin.

The wind blows, and uplifts thy drooping banner,
    And round thee throng and run
The rushes, the green yeomen of thy manor,
    The outlaws of the sun.

The burnished dragon-fly is thine attendant,
    And tilts against the field,
And down the listed sunbeam rides resplendent
    With stee...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow