A Mayapple Flower

What magic through your snowy crystal gleams!     Your hollow spar, Spring brims with fragrancy;     That, like the cup of Comus, drugs with dreams     This woodland place, so drowsed with mystery.     What miracle evolved you from the mold?     Dreamed you, as 't were, into reality     Out of the Winter's death and night and cold?     Are you a sign, a message, that the Spring     Out of her soul unto the eye reveals?     A symboled something, telling many a thing     Of beauty she within her breast conceals?     The word significant, that conquers Death;     That through eternity with Nature deals,     As did the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth.     Or, of the rapture of the Earth a part,     Are you a thought that crystallized from dew     Into a flower? Nature, on her heart,     Bewildered with the hope from whence you grew     Your loveliness, wears as an evidence     Of immortality; a hint, a clue     To that which still evades our mortal sense.