Spring In The Alps

THE flowers are at their Bacchanals
Among the lusty green;
Wild Orchis and Narcissus waltz
With Marguerite for queen.
Birds join in glees and madrigals
To little loves unseen;
And unimprisoned Waterfalls
Flash laughing in between.

The Sunlight, leaping from the Heights,
Flames o'er the fields of May,
Winged with unnumbered swallow-flights
Fresh from the long sea way;

And butterflies and insect mites,
Born with the new-blown day,
Cross fires in shifting opal lights
From spray to beckoning spray.

The dandelion puffs her balls,
Free spinsters of the air,
Who scorn to wait for beetle calls
Or bees to find them fair;
But breaking through the painted walls
Their sisters tamely bear,
Fly off in dancing down, which falls
And sprouts up everywhere.

And far above Earth's flower-filled lap
And rosy revelry,
The mountain mothers feed her sap
From herded clouds on high--
Each pinnacle and frozen pap
Whose life has long gone by,
A bridge which spans the mighty gap
Between the earth and sky.
St. Gotthardt.