Sonnet On An Edelweiss

Where huge rock buttresses bear up the clouds,
  With all their floating reservoirs of rain;
  Where the wide winding sheet of snow enshrouds
  The glacier's sapphire clefts and glittering plain,
  This flow'r is found—the well-nam'd Edelweiss.
  Of frozen beds of foam and fields of ice,
  Soft downy blossom—type of purity,
  Of courage high and low humility,
  Fast-rooted Love clinging to dire mischance.
  Faith fixed as Fate defying circumstance,
  O'er the unstable seas thee do I send,
  Star of the steadfast mountains, to the friend
  In whom thy loftiest, lowliest graces meet.
  Bloom, Edelweiss, at her beloved feet!