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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 pagesfancied 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 oer the visioned Alp. | 30 |
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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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