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THE CHAMOIS HUNTER. 



A chamois-hunter you think is poor 

 And more forlorn than the veriest boor ; 

 Yet it is not so ; for, look you, if 't were 

 How sad his fate should his foot but err ? 



The nearer Heaven, more sure you are 

 Your guardian angel cannot be far ; 

 But down below in the crowd he might 

 Not always find you or see aright. 



And mark ! the Devil, who is no fool, 

 Prowls ever there when he wants a tool ; 

 Where men together so thickly herd, 

 He has a handful without a word. 



but by a ledge, where . perhaps a chamois could hardly stand. But it is 

 this very difficulty of acquisition which gives the flower so peculiar a 

 value, and impels many a youth to brave the danger, that he may get a 

 posy of Edelweis for the hat or the bosom of the girl he loves ; and often 

 has such a one fallen over the rocks just as he had reached it, and been 

 found dead ; in his hand the flower of such fatal beauty, which he still 

 held firmly grasped. 



It has been made the theme of many a verse, and by no poet has its 

 praise been oftener sung than Kobell, of one of whose poems on this 

 flower the following is a translation : — 



EDELWEIS. 



The mountains deck their rocky crowns 

 With flowers which are the rarest j 



For only on the highest spots 

 Grow those which are the fairest. 



Hence in my songs, the Edelweis 



I praise where'er I wander, 

 An image of pure love, within 



The stony realm up yonder. 



Like that flower should it germ, beyond 



The reach of every rover, 

 And bloom above the common world, 



And last when life is over. 



