White Azaleas
Azaleas—whitest of white!
White as the drifted snow
Fresh-fallen out of the night,
Before the coming glow
Tinges the morning light;
When the light is like the snow,
White,
And the silence is like the light:
Light, and silence, and snow,—
All—white!
White! not a hint
Of the creamy tint
A rose will hold,
The whitest rose, in its inmost fold;
Not a possible blush;
White as an embodied hush;
A very rapture of white;
A wedlock of silence and light:
White, white as the wonder undefiled
Of Eve just wakened in Paradise;
Nay, white as the angel of a child
That looks into God’s own eyes!