God made a little gentian;
It tried to be a rose
And failed, and all the summer laughed.
But just before the snows
There came a purple creature
That ravished all the hill;
And summer hid her forehead,
And mockery was still.
The frosts were her condition;
The Tyrian* would not come
Until the North evoked it.
"Creator! shall I bloom?"
---Emily Dickinson
*Tyrian: A shade of purple, named for the dye made in the ancient city of Tyre.
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