Littell's Living Age/Volume 144/Issue 1865/Flowers on the Top of the Pillars at the Entrance of the Cave of Staffa

smiled when your nativity was cast, Children of summer! Ye fresh flowers that brave What summer here escapes not, the fierce wave, And whole artillery of the western blast, Battering the temple’s front, its long-drawn nave Smiting, as if each moment were their last. But ye, bright flowers, on frieze and architrave, Survive, and once again the pile stands fast: Calm as the universe, from specular towers Of heaven contemplated by spirits pure With mute astonishment, it stands sustained Through every part in symmetry, to endure, Unhurt, the assault of time with all his hours, As the supreme Artificer ordained.