Wherever on the untrodden Alps

Wherever on the untrodden Alps
The snows begin to fade,
And frozen streams to leap again
Beneath the pine-tree shade;
While still the grass is brown and dead
With its long winter sleep,
And leafless shrubs their withered arms
Stretch down the barren steep.
Then here and there two little flowers,
Like lights of earliest morn.
Or rays of hope in sorrow seen,
Shine on the slopes forlorn.
They break the snow with gentle force
And struggle toward the sun:
The chilly wreaths around them melt,
The streams beneath them run.
The dull old earth feels young again,
So fresh and bright they peer,
Pale pearly cups and lilac bells,
Crying " The spring is here."
But when the snows have died and flown
Like spirits to the sky.
In shape of fleecy summer clouds
That on the mountains lie;
When on the cool green fields the grass
Grows deeper day by day;
And all the troops of laughing flowers
Make rock and meadow gay;
Then you may look in vain to find
These first faint buds of spring:
The month that quickens all to life
Hath watched their withering.
They broke the frozen winter snow,
And spake the first good morrow;
They bade us be of better cheer
When we were dulled with sorrow.
Now they must die and droop away:
Their very graves ignore them;
Fresh leaves and gaudy blossoms wave
Above the slopes that bore them.
Only where here and there the snows
Of avalanches linger,
And Winter on a gloomy dell
Lays his cold lifeless finger;
There still secluded from the wealth
Of happier fields they blow,
Blooming and fading hour by hour
Near the retreating snow.
They bloom and fade, and do not shrink
From their appointed duty;
To show the paths that June must tread
But not to share her beauty;
To live their short lives on the brink
Of death, and then to perish,
Between the chill snow and the sun
That burns but does not cherish.
Die, little flowers, but not unwept
Nor yet unhonoured die:
Like you dawn's herald star doth fade
From the dim morning sky;
Like you the great and good and wise,
The first of those who woke
From sleeps of ignorance and through
The snows of ages broke,
Sank, having done their work, nor saw
The summer they foretold —
Glad flowers and grasses o'er them wave,
Blue, crimson, green, and gold.