Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/371

THE ROSE AND THE JASMINE And there a lone papaya lifting high

Its golden-gourded cresset. Night's high noon

Is luminous; that swooning silvery hour

When the concentrate spirit of the South

Grows visible—so rare, and yet so filled

With tremulous pulsation that it seems

All light and fragrance and ethereal dew.

Two vases—carved from some dark, precious wood,

The red-grained heart of olden trees that cling

To yonder mountain—in the moonlight cast

Their scrolls' deep shadows on the glassy floor.

A proud exotic Rose, brought from the North,

Is set within the one; the other bears

A double Jasmine for its counter-charm.

Here on their thrones, in equal high estate,

The rivals bloom; and both have drunk the dew,

Tending their beauty in the midnight air,

Until their sovereign odors meet and blend,

As voices blend that whisper melody,

Now each distinct, now mingled both in one:

JASMINE

I, like a star, against the woven gloom

Of tresses on Dolores' brow shall rest.

ROSE

And I one happy, happy night shall bloom

Twined in the border of her silken vest.

JASMINE

Throughout our isle the guardian winds deprive

Of all their sweets a hundred common flowers,

To feed my heart with fragrance! Lone they live,

And drop their petals far from trellised bowers.

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