| |
| EVEN at their fairest still I love the less | |
| The blossoms of the garden than the blooms | |
| Won by the mountain climber: theirs the tints | |
| And forms that most delight me,—theirs the charm | |
| That lends an aureole to the azure heights | 5 |
| Whereon they flourish, children of the dews | |
| And mountain streamlets. | |
| But in sleep sometimes | |
| Mountain and meadow blend their gifts in one. | |
| This morn I trod the secret path of dreams, | 10 |
| And, lo! my wilding flowers sprang thick around me, | |
| Alpine and lowland too; and with them sprang | |
| Blossoms that never had I known before | |
| Except in poets’ pages—fancied forms | |
| And hues that shone in more than Alpine light. | 15 |
| Poppies incarnadine and rosemary, | |
| And violets with gentle eyes were there, | |
| And their sweet cousinry, the periwinkles; | |
| Night-blooming cereus, agrimony, rue, | |
| And stately damask roses, Eastern queens, | 20 |
| The noblest-born of flowers; and by their side | |
| The panthers of the meadow, tiger-lilies; | |
| Came with her trembling banner of perfumed bells | |
| The lily of the valley, and the jessamine, | |
| Princesses twain with maiden fragrance pure; | 25 |
| The azure of the Alpine gentian shone | |
| Intense beneath the rival blue of heaven; | |
| Along the heights blossomed the Alpine rose, | |
| And higher yet the starry edelweiss,— | |
| And sweet the wind came o’er the visioned Alp. | 30 |
| |
| But now I seemed to wonder at the view, | |
| To my dimmed sense a riddle; then was ’ware | |
| Of daytime colors blending with my dream, | |
| And cleared my eyes, and saw my roguish girl, | |
| A witch of seven, with flowers in both her hands, | 35 |
| Fresh-gathered in my garden, stealing in | |
| Upon my morning vision, and waving me | |
| Their fragrance. “Wake!” she cried, and I awoke | |
| To her, a sweeter flower than all the rest! | |
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