I discovered this amazing segment from a six-line poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson. 40 years ago - it stays with me today! I believe it was etched in a small monument or tombstone in a graveyard in Cambridge Massachusetts.
"Little flower-but if I could understand What you are, root and all, all in all, I should know what God and man is."
Here is the full poem:
Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower—but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.
- Alfred Lord Tennyson, 1863
