Donna Mecozzi Staton

Lily of The Valley
 By Paul Lawrence Dunbar
 

Sweetest of the flowers a blooming
In the fragrant vernal days,
Is the Lily-of-the-Valley
With its soft retiring ways.

Well, you chose this humble blossom,
As the Nurse's emblem flower
Who grows more like her idea
Every day and every hour

Like the Lily-of-the-Valley
In her honesty and worth  -
Oh! She blooms in truth and virtue
In the humble works of earth.

Though she stands erect in honor
When the heart of mankind bleeds,
Still she hides her own deserving
In the beauty of her deeds.

In the silence and the darkness,
When no eye may see or know,
There her footsteps shod with mercy
and fleet kindness, come and go.

Not amid the sound of plaudits,
Not before the garish day;
Does she shed her soul's sweet perfume,
Does she take her gentle way. 

But alike her ideal flower,
With its honey-laden breath;
Still her heart blooms forth its beauty
In the valley shades of death.

...Family in the care of Erin Arteaga, Funeral Director