Madison Julius Cawein

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.