What is the sweetest little flower
In all the leaf-green wild?
O that must be the violet
The spring's own foster child.
O no, not hers the sweetest dower,
I know a fairer little flower!
What is the sweetest little flower
In all the leaf-green wild ?
Then it must be the red, red rose
On which the sunbeam smiled.
O no, not hers the fairest dower,
I know a fairer little flower.
The rose and violet fade and die
Amid the leaf-green wood
I know a flower that never fades
In silent solitude.
Then name to me this forest child,
The sweetest flower of all the wild.
When gentle spring the violet wakes
And wood-birds sing and brood,
Then waits my wondrous little flower
In patient solitude.
No breath of perfume hour by hour —
Yet still the sweetest little flower.
When all the flowers go to sleep
When leaf and blossom fall,
When shrub and tree all mourning stand
And birds no longer call,
From ice and snow then blooms to light
My little flower so silver white.
Of love within the heart that glows
Undying, ever new,
This flower that from the silence grows
Is semblance fair and true.
Free from its thrall of snow and ice
Dear little blossom — Edelweiss.