Page:The New Penelope.djvu/328

322 To render sacred all the emerald glooms:

For here dwelt such bright angels as attend

The innocent ways of youth's unsullied feet;

And all the beautiful band of sinless hopes,

Twining their crowns of pearl-white amaranth;

And rosy, dream-draped, sapphire-eyed desires

Whose twin-born deities were Truth and Faith

Having their altars over all the land.

Beauty held court within its vales by day,

And Love made concert with the nightingales

In singing 'mong the myrtles, starry eves."

"You are inspired, Zobedia, your eyes

Look not upon the present summer world,

But see some mystery beyond the close

Of this pale blue horizon."

"Erewhile I wandered from this happy land.

Crowned with its roses, wearing in my eyes

Reflections of its shining glorious heaven,

And bearing on my breast and in my hands

Its violets, and lilies white and sweet,—

Following the music floating in the air

Made by the fall of founts, the voice of streams

And murmur of the winds among the trees,

I strayed in reveries of soft delight

Beyond the bounds of this delicious East.

But oh, the splendors of that newer clime!

It was as if those oriental dreams

In which my soul was steeped to fervidness,

Were here transmuted to their golden real

With added glories for each shape or hue.

The stately trees wore coronals of flowers

That swung their censers in the mid-day sun:

The pines and palms of my delightful east

Chaunted their wild songs nearer to the stars;