Classic Poem

On peaks where the clouds have sifted
Their snows o'er the naked ground,
Where no blade of grass is lifted,
And no Alpine rose is found, —
Pure white in those dreary spaces,
A flower blooms mid the ice,
The crags all its life it graces,
And men call it edelweiss.

When Autumn's wild blasts are killing
All flowers in zones less rare,
With frost-cruel fingers chilling
The cheeks that are blooming there,
When roses their heads have bended
And strewn their last leaves below,
When Beauty's long reign is ended,
The edelweiss blooms in snow.

Yon flower in truth must cherish
A love of no common worth,
That lives when all else doth perish
And Beauty has passed from earth.
Her love from that rocky summit
Looks down on the fading rose;
Yet never can ice benumb it,
It blooms till her life shall close.