Page:The Garden of Years.djvu/42



Thus, in my deepest heart must I inshrine

Her stately cliffs, patrolled by guardian seas;

Her hollowed hillsides, where the slender vine,

Pregnant with promise of the autumn wine,

Leans on its staff against the battling breeze:

And all her silver streams, that seek the seas,

Threading the dappled fabric of her lawns—

Her crimson sunsets, snared among the trees,

And all the crescent glory of her dawns,—

For I am hers for aye, and she is mine!

The murmured secrets of her Norman firs,

Wherein at night the whisper of the air

To busy babble all the branches spurs,

Till every drowsy needle wakes and stirs,

And of the gossip speaks its little share:

Her shadowy mines, her southern gardens, where

The oval olives crowd the bending bough:

All these are mine:—but, most of all, O fair

Laughing and languid Paris, mine art thou,

Pinned like a pearl on that white brow of hers!