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
