Page:Flowers of Loveliness.pdf/13



Not 'mid the soil and the shadow of earth, Have we our home, or take we our birth; Keep ye your valleys that breathe of the rose, When bendeth the myrtle; we reck not of those.

Low in the waters our palace we make, Where sweepeth the river, or spreadeth the lake; And the willow that bends with its green hair above, Like a lady in grief, is the tree that we love.

At noontide we sleep to the music of shells, That we bring from the depths of the sea to our cells; Our cells that are roofed with the crystal, whose light Is like the young moon’s, on her first summer night.

Strange plants are around us, whose delicate leaves No hue from the sunshine or moonlight receives; Yet rich are the colours, as those that are given When the first hours of April are azure in heaven.

There branches the coral, as red as the lip Of the earliest rose that the honey-bees sip; And above are encrusted a myriad of spars, With the hues of the rainbow, the light of the stars.

Our streams are like mirrors, reflecting the ranks Of the wild flowers that blossom and bend on our banks; We give back their beauty—the face is as fair Of the rose in the wave, as it is on the air.