Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/368

THE CARIB SEA How the lush banana leaves

From their braided trunk unfold;

How the mango wears its gold,

And the sceptred aloe's bloom

Glorifies it for the tomb.

When the day has ended quite,

Splendor fills the drooping skies;

All is beauty, naught is night.

Then the Crosses twain arise,

Southward far, above the deep,

And the moon their light outvies.

Hark! the wakened lute and song

That to this fond clime belong,—

All is music, naught is sleep.

Isle of plenty, isle of love!

In the low, encircling plain

Laboring Afric, loaded wain,

Bearing sweets and spices, move;

On the happy heights above

Love his seat has chosen well,

Dreamful ease and silence dwell,

Life is all entranced, and time

Passes like a tinkling rhyme.

Ah, on those cool heights to dwell

Yielded to the island's spell!

There from some low-whispering mouth

To learn the secret of the South,

Or to watch dark eyes that close

When their sleep the noondays bring,

(List, the palm leaves murmuring!)

And the wind that comes and goes

Smells of every flower that blows.

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