Select poems / by L.H. Sigourney [electronic resource]

ALPINE FLOWERS.

MEEK dwellers 'mid yon terror-stricken cliffs, With brows so pure, and incense-breathing lips, Whence are ye? Did some white-wing'd messenger On mercy's mission, trust your timid germ To the cold cradle of eternal snows, And, breathing on the callous icicles, Bid them with tear-drops nurse ye? Tree nor shrub Dare the drear atmosphere,—no polar-pine Uplifts a veteran front, yet there ye stand, Leaning your cheeks against the thick-ribb'd ice, And looking up with stedfast eye to Him, Who bids ye bloom unblanch'd amid the realm Of desolation. Man who, panting, toils O'er slippery steeps, or treads the dizzy verge Of yawning gulfs, down which the headlong plunge Is to eternity,—looks shuddering up And marks ye in your placid loveliness,

Fearless, yet frail; and clasping his chill hands, Blesses your pencil'd beauty. 'Mid the pomp Of mountain-summits rushing toward the sky, And chaining the wrapt soul in breathless awe, He bows to bind ye, drooping, to his breast, Inhales your spirit from the frost-wing'd gale, And freer dreams of heaven.