THE SNOW PLANT OF THE SIERRAS
On those eternal peaks where winter reigns,
And cold and frost their icy splendors shed,
Like drops of blood on pallid banks of snow,
This hyacinthine blossom lifts its head,
A pyramid of tiny tongues of flame
Darting from out the rifts of dazzling white.
A strange, bright phantom, born of ice and fire,
Flushing pale wastes with gleams of crimson light.
'Tis said that when a holy man of old,
Bearing the cross, on sacred mission bent,
Beheld upon the mountain's snowy crest
This blood-red flower his pious fancy lent
A charm miraculous, and, kneeling there
In adoration, on the mountain-side,
With heavenward gaze and hands upraised in prayer,
"Sangre de Cristo"-- blood of Christ-- he cried!

-- Sarah J. Pettinos