Twin Flowers on the Portage

THEY cover in a twinkling host
The mosses, green and yellow ;
One flower would be Titania’s boast
Without her lovely fellow.

But linked in fragile twos they droop
Where’er the vines may wander ;
Above the hidden loop in loop
They seem to drowse and ponder.

If form could wake in sound, these cones
Would haunt the dewy hollow
With tabors taut, and golden drones,
And dancing flutes that follow.

If odors risen from orient wells
Might don a sea apparel,
The blooms would beam as rosy shells
Beneath a sea of beryl.

If flowers could form in thought, these lights
Would be the gentle seeming
That virgin fairies bend on knights
When they are half a-dreaming.

Where on the portage now they droop
In tint and odor mellow
One flower would grace Titania’s troop
Without her lovely fellow.