120 
£ Oh tell me not of valley fair 
Where sweeter flow’rets bloom, 
I too have sun and healthful air 
In this my mountain home ; 
Yet, stranger, doth thy sympathy 
Demand some poor return from me ; 
And what if I, frail lowly thing, 
Such lesson to thine heart might bring, 
That thou in after hour should’st bless 
The flow’ret of the wilderness. 
Deem’st thou these snows scarce fitting bower 
For aught so fair as I ? 
O know that One whose will is power 
Has shaped my destiny; 
He spake me into being,—shed 
His sunshine on my alpine bed, 
Bade the strong blast which shook the pine 
Pass harmless o’er this head of mine, 
And gently reared my early bloom, 
Mid snows which else had been my tomb. 
View in this mountain’s frozen breast 
An emblem true of thine, 
So cold, so hard, till on it rest 
A beam of light divine. 
