VAGRANT VERSE

Southland Times, Issue 18856, 23 June 1920, Page 4

VAGRANT VERSE

the vernal gentian. The gold-eyed dryas flashes on the gloom Of old gray rocks and meets the cushioned pink. Vernal anemones with opal bloom Droop in a silver joy beside the glacier’* brink. Swift snow-bom rillets thread a wreath oi flowers, Where ivory buttercups flash through tb* spray And azure myosotis drink their showers While, laughing to the hills, they leap upon their way. The bears’ own berry bends her clustered blooms Rose-rimmcd to earth; the least azalea spreads A little carpet wrought on rock looms Tor foothold in the crags, where the brown chamois treads. And greater things innumerable shine, Within their woodland haunts together blow St. Bruno's lily and the columbine; Actea nods her head and alpen roses glow The globe flower lifts a little orb of gold; The sceptercd aconite doth shrink from view; The lily of the valley’s bells unfold With’ green herb Paris dim and violets and rue. But farier than all this garnered store Of splendors from a tinctured precipice Or iris-painted meadow; more, far more, Than all that I have seen and loved, there cometh this. The vernal gentian! . . . The wind-worn valleys of the inland sea Amid the feathers of their crested brine And liquid leagues of lapis-lazuli Have never gladdened heart with such a blue as thine. —From ‘‘Wild Fruit,” by Eden Philpotta.