Flower-De-Luce by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
A speaker addresses a lily beside quiet waterways, contrasting its effortless bloom with the mill’s toil. Courtly metaphors turn rushes into yeomen and a dragonfly into an armored attendant; comparisons to Iris and the Muse lead to a wish that the flower and song continue to make the world fairer.
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · Genre: Nature Poetry, Lyric Poetry · 311 words
First lines
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.
Genres
- Nature Poetry — The lily’s waterside habitat, wind-blown bloom, surrounding rushes, and attendant dragonfly supply the poem’s concrete subjects.
- Lyric Poetry — Eight rhymed stanzas address the flower directly and culminate in a wish for the continued flowering of both plant and song.
Tags
flowers · rivers · mills · dragonflies · personification · poetic inspiration
What this Textopian page supports
Flower-De-Luce is listed on Textopian as a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, dated Date unknown.
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- Work type: Poem
- Author: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Nature Poetry, Lyric Poetry
- Length: 311 words
- Structure: 1 section, 8 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
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