Flower Poetry Fridays: Alpine Flowers

Welcome back to Flower Poetry Fridays with Mrs. Sigourney. Each Friday a new poem will be posted from her The Voice Of Flowers.

ALPINE FLOWERS.

Alpine Flowers with Icy Glaciers
Alpine Flowers with Icy Glaciers

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 errands, trust your timid germ
To the cold cradle of eternal snows ?
Or, breathing on the callous icicles,
Bid them, with tear-drops, nurse ye ?
                                       Tree, nor shrub
Dare yon drear atmosphere. No polar pine
Uprears a veteran front. Yet there ye stand,
Leaning your cheeks against the thick-ribb’d
                  ice,
And looking up, with trustful eyes, to Him
Who bids you bloom, unblanch’d, amid the
                  waste
Of desolation.

                                       Man, who panting toils
O’er slippery steeps ; or, trembling, treads the
                  verge
Of yawning gulfs, from 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, towering to the skies,
And chaining the rapt soul in breathless awe,
He bows to bind you drooping to his breast,
Inhales your fragrance on the frost-wing’d
                  gale,
And freer dreams of Heaven.

It certainly is a curiosity how any green plant can handle the Arctic tundra.

Who will be there to pollinate them. Or appreciate them and smile?

The ones we have in the lower 48 all shrivel at the thought of blooming among the icicles and snow.

Perhaps a few rugged souls who can brave the frigid weather will have the joy of seeing a few blooming alpine flowers in the snow.

Whoever does discover an alpine flower can revel in the fact that they’re one of the very few who has ever had the pleasure. If you’re one of the courageous lucky ones, take a photo and post one here for the rest of us!

Come back next Friday for the next installment in our series of flower poems from Mrs. Sigourney’s The Voice of Flowers, “The Rose-Geranium, Companion of a Voyage”.

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