THE DESERT FLOWER.
A weary course the traveller held,
As on with footstep lone,
By scientific zeal impelled
He tracked the torrid zone.
His thoughts were with his native glades,
His father's pleasant halls,
Where darkly peer through woven shades
The abbey's ivied walls.
But to the far horizon's bound,
Wide as the glance could sweep,
The sandy desert spread around
Like one vast, waveless deep.
What saw he 'mid that dreary scene,
To wake his rapture wild?
A flower!—A flower!—with glorious mien,
Like some bright rainbow's child.
Kneeling he clasped it to his breast,
He praised its wonderous birth,
Fresh, fragile, beautiful and blest,
The poetry of earth.
No secret fountain through its veins
Sustaining vigor threw,
No dew refreshed those arid plains,
Yet there the stranger grew.
It seemed as if some tender friend,
Beloved in childhood's day,
A murmur through those leaves did send,
A smile to cheer his way:
And fervently a prayer for those
In his own distant bower,
Like incense from his heart uprose
Beside that Desert Flower.
For thus do Nature's hallowed charms
Man's softened soul inspire,
As to the infant in her arms
The mother points its sire.