Hymn III

From the Latin of Marc Antony Flaminius, sixteenth century.

As a fragile and lovely flower unfolds its gleaming
foliage on the breast of the fostering earth, if
the dew and the rain draw it forth;
So doth my tender mind flourish, if it be fed with the
sweet dew of the fostering spirit,
Lacking this, it beginneth straightway to languish,
even as a floweret born upon dry earth, if the
dew and the rain tend it not.