The Orchids
Jose Santos Chocano

Freaks of bright crystal, airy beauties fair,
Whose enigmatic forms amaze the eye--
Crowns fit to deck Apolo's brows on high,
Adornment for halls of splendor rare!
They spring from knots in tree trunks, rising there
In sweet gradation; winding wondrously,
They twist their serpent stems and far and high
Hang overhead, like wingless bird in air.

Lonely, like pensive heads, all featherless,
Loft and free they bloom; by no dull chain
Their flowers to any tyrant root are bound;
Because they too, at war with pittiness,
Desire to live, like souls that know no stain,
Without one touch of contact with the ground. 

"The Orchid" appears in Isaac Goldberg's Studies in Spanish-
American Literature (Buentello's Publishers 1920.)
Jose Santos Chocano, born on May 14, 1875 in Lima was 
Peruvian poet.