Sonnet on a Sunday / Lily

94

They that have power to hurt, and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow;
They rightly do inherit heaven's graces,
And husband nature's riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others, but stewards of their excellence.
The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself, it only live and die,
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.



So we've skipped ahead, (just a few :) ). I can't remember where I first read this poem, but it was in the front of a crime novel, several years ago. It's the couplet at the end that stayed with me, and that's really where Lily got her name from. Even if the rest of the poem goes over your head, the last two lines are pretty clear.

Lily is also a bit of an anti-Mavis, the fairy from the Willo the Wisp cartoon who always seemed to be skipping through the forest, (but Lily has slightly more of an Edna edge :) ).