IN THE SOUTH.

There is a princess in the South

About whose beauty rumors hum

Like honey-bees about the mouth

Of roses dewdrops falter from;

And O her hair is like the fine

Clear amber of a jostled wine

In tropic revels; and her eyes

Are blue as rifts of Paradise.

Such beauty as may none before

Kneel daringly, to kiss the tips

Of fingers such as knights of yore

Had died to lift against their lips:

Such eyes as might the eyes of gold

Of all the stars of night behold

With glittering envy, and so glare

In dazzling splendor of despair.

So, were I but a minstrel, deft

At weaving, with the trembling strings

Of my glad harp, the warp and weft

Of rondels such as rapture sings,—

I'd loop my lyre across my breast,

Nor stay me till my knee found rest

In midnight banks of bud and flower

Beneath my lady's lattice-bower.

And there, drenched with the teary dews,

I'd woo her with such wondrous art

As well might stanch the songs that ooze

Out of the mockbird's breaking heart;

So light, so tender, and so sweet

Should be the words I would repeat,

Her casement, on my gradual sight,

Would blossom as a lily might.