THE POETRY OF FLO-WKRS. 159 
And musing by love’s haunted rill, 
Earth’s “ river of the blest,” 
To see how sweetly heaven still, 
Is mirror’d on its breast, 
And feel thou, there, art nearer far 
To that bright land of sun and star! 
— « - 
THE ALPINE FLOWERS 
BY MRS. SIGOURNEY. 
Meek dwellers ’mid yon terror-stricken cliffs! 
With brows so pure, and incense-breathing lips, 
Whence are ye ?—Did some white-wing’d mes. 
senger 
On Mercy’s missions trust your timid germ 
To the cold cradle of eternal snows ? 
Or, breathing on the callous icicles, 
Bid them with tear-drops nurse ye ?— 
—Tree nor shrub 
Dare that drear atmosphere : no polar pine 
Uprears a veteran front; yet there ye stand, 
Leaning your cheeks against the thick-ribb’d ice 
And looking up with brilliant eyes to Him 
Who bids you bloom unblanch’d amid the waste 
Of desolation. Man, wha, panting, toils 
O'er slippery steeps, or, trembling treads the 
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