The Secret of a Weed's Plain Heart

"I grieve not that ripe Knowledge takes away

 The charm that Nature to my childhood wore,

 For, with that insight, cometh, day by day, 

A greater bliss than wonder was before;

The real doth not clip the poet's wings, —

To win the secret of a weed's plain heart 

Reveals some clew to spiritual things,

 And stumbling guess becomes firm-footed art:

 Flowers are not flowers unto the poet's eyes, 

Their beauty thrills him by an inward sense;

 He knows that outward seemings are but lies, 

Or, at the most, but earthly shadows, whence 

The soul that looks within for truth may guess 

       The presence of some wondrous heavenliness."      
                                                             ~James Russel Lowell