Henry Ellison (1811-1880). Selected Sonnets. III. Sonnet to the Gentian. Alfred H. Miles, ed. 1907. The Sacred Poets of the Nineteenth Century

Alfred H. Miles, ed. The Sacred Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.

Selected Sonnets.
III. Sonnet to the Gentian

By Henry Ellison (1811–1880)


(From “Mad Moments”) SWEET flower of holiest blue! why bloom’st thou so
In solitary loveliness, more fair
In this thy artless beauty, than the rare
And costliest garden-plant? why dost thou grow
On the unthankful ice-cliff’s printless brow,	5
Like the fond offerings, which true hearts bear
To the cold inmate of the grave? The air
Is redolent of Heaven, and thy glow
Of azure blue is caught from thence; but why
Hid’st thou thy beauties from the sight of man?	10
There is a moral in thy privacy!
Truth will not grow where vulgar eyes may scan,
Or hands unholy pluck—’tis for the sky
She blooms, and those who seek, must climb, nor fear to die.