WHITE ORCHIDS. 



And shining banks of flowers which words refuse 



To paint ; such colors as in summer light 



The rarest, fleetest summer rainbows use, 



But set in gold of sun, and silver white 



Of dew, as thick as gems which blind the sight 



On altar fronts, inlaid with priceless things, 



The jewelled gifts of centuries of kings. 



Then, sitting half in dream, and half in fear 

 Of how such wondrous miracle were wrought. 

 Thy name, dear friend, I sudden seemed to hear 

 Through all the charmed air. 



My loving thought 

 Through patient years had vainly groped and sought, 

 And found no hidden thing so rare, so good, 

 That it might furnish thy similitude. 



O noble soul, whose strengths like mountains stand, 

 Whose purposes, like adamantine stone, 

 Bar roads to feeble feet, and wrap the land 

 In seeming shadow, thou, too, hast thine own 

 Sweet valleys full of flowers, for me alone. 

 Unseen, unknown, undreamed of by the mass, 

 Who do not know the secret of the Pass. 



Ampezzo Pass, June 22, 1869. J-J, fj. 



