ORCHIDs, 55 
Methinks thy Wondering leayes 
And curious petals at the long-lost sun 
Gaze with a lingering love, bedizen’d oer 
With a small firmament of eyes to catch | 
The luxury of his smile; , 9 
Methinks I see thy fair and foreign face 
Blush with the ardor of first love, 
When some bright butterfly descends to sip 
The exotic fragrance of thy nectarous dew; 
Even so, Zabal’s daughters in old time 
Welcomed the sons of God, who sprang from heaven 
To gaze with rapture on earth’s fairest creatures, 
And fan them with their rainbow-colored wings. 
Didst ever dream of such a day as this; 
A day of life and sunshine, when entranced 
In the cold tomb of yonder shrivelled hand? 
Didst ever try to shoot thy fibres forth 
Through thy close prison-bars, those parchment fingers, 
And strive to blossom in a charnel house? 
Didst ever struggle to be free, —to leap 
From that forced wedlock with a clammy corpse, — 
To burst thy bonds asunder, and spring up, 
A thing of light, to commerce with the skies? 
Or didst thou rather, with endurance strong, 
Baffle corruption, and live on unharmed 
Amid the pestilent steams that wrapped thee round, 
Like Mithridates, when he would not die, 
But conquered poison by his strong resolve? 
O Life, thy name is mystery, — that couldst 
Thus energize inert, be, yet not be, 
Concentrating thy powers in one small point; 
Couldst mail a germ, in seeming weakness strong, 
And arm it as thy champion against Death; 
Couldst give a weed, dug from the common field, 
