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.