56 
ORCHIDS. 
What Egypt hath not, — Immortality. 
It may be, suns and stars that walked the heavens, 
While thou wert in thy slumber, gentle flower, 
Have sprung from chaos, blazed their age, and burst, 
It may be, that thou see’st the world worn out, 
And look’st on meadows of a paler green, 
Flowers of a duskier hue, and all creation, 
Down to degenerate man, more and more dead, 
Than in those golden hours, nearest to Eden, 
When Mother Earth, and thou, and all were young. 
But this dry hand, — 
Wert thou some garden-lover, and this bulb 
Perchance most rare and fine, prized above gold 
(As in the mad world’s dotage, yesterday 
A tulip-root could fetch a prince’s ransom), 
Was to be buried with thee, as thy praise, 
Thy Rosicrucian lamp, thine idol weed? 
Perchance, O kinder thought and better hope, 
Some priest of Isis shrined this root with thee 
As nature’s hieroglyphic, her half guess 
Of glimmering faith, that soul will never die. 
What emblem liker, or more eloquent 
Of immortality, 
Or all whatever else were symbols apt 
In Egypt’s alphabet, — as thou, dry root, 
So full of living promise? 
