THE SOUTH.

A Queen of indolence and idle grace,

Robed in the vestments of a costly gown,

She turns the languor of her lovely face

Upon progression with a lazy frown.

Her throne is built upon a marshy down;

Malarial mosses wreathe her like old lace;

With slim crossed feet, unshod and bare and brown.

She sits indifferent to the world’ s swift race.

Across the seas there stalks an ogre grim:

Too languid she for even fear’ s alarms,

While frightened nations rally in defence,

She lifts her smiling Creole eyes to him,

And reaching out her shapely unwashed arms,

She clasps her rightful lover — Pestilence.