ALMOND BLOSSOM
Blossom of the almond trees,
April's gift to April's bees,
Birthday ornament of Spring,
Flora's fairest daughterling;
Coming when no flowerets dare
Trust the cruel outer air;
When the royal kingcup bold
Dares not don his coat of gold;
And the sturdy black-thorn spray
Keeps his silver for the May;—
Coming when no flowerets would,
Save thy lowly sisterhood,
Early violets; blue and white,
Dying for their love of light;—
Almond blossom, sent to teach us
That the spring days soon will reach us,
Lest, with longing over-tried,
We die, as the violets died;—
Blossom, clouding all the tree
With thy crimson broidery,
Long before a leaf of green
On the bravest bough is seen;—
Ah! when winter winds are swinging
All thy red bells into ringing,
With a bee in every bell,
Almond bloom, we greet thee well.
Edwin Arnold [1832-1904]
WHITE AZALEAS
Azaleas—whitest of white!
White as the drifted snow
Fresh-fallen out of the night,
Before the coming glow.
Tinges the morning light;
When the light is like the snow,
White,
And the silence is like the light:
Light, and silence, and snow,—
All—white!
White! not a hint
Of the creamy tint
A rose will hold,
The whitest rose, in its inmost fold;
Not a possible blush;
White as an embodied hush;
A very rapture of white;
A wedlock Of silence and light:
White, white as the wonder undefiled
Of Eve just wakened in Paradise;
Nay, white as the angel of a child
That looks into God's own eyes!
Harriet McEwen Kimball [1834-1917]