Majestic flower! How purely beautiful Thou art, as rising from thy bower of green, Those dark and glossy leaves so thick and full, Thou standest like a high-born forest queen Among thy maidens clustering round so fair,- I love to watch thy sculptured form unfolding, And look into thy depths, to image there A fairy cavern, and while thus beholding, And while thy breeze floats o'er thee, matchless flower, I breathe the perfume, delicate and strong, That comes like incense from thy petal-bower; My fancy roams those southern woods along, Beneath that glorious tree, where deep among The unsunned leaves thy large white flower-cups hung! THERE, down Salerno's bay, In deserts far away, Over whose solitudes The dread malaria broods, No labour tills the land, Only the fierce brigand, Or shepherd, wan and lean, O'er the wide plains is seen. Yet there, a lovely dream, There Grecian temples gleam, Whose form and mellowed tone Rival the Parthenon. The Sybarite no more Comes hither to adore, With perfumed offering, The ocean god and king. The deity is fled Long since, but, in his stead, The smiling sea is seen, The Doric shafts between; And round the time-worn base Climb vines of tender grace, And Paestum's roses still The air with fragrance fill. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...GYPSY MAN by JAMES LANGSTON HUGHES FRINGED GENTIANS by AMY LOWELL COMOS by ADRA CAROLINE BATCHELDER OLD REMEDIES by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN CHRISTMAS EVE by ROBERT BROWNING EPITAPH ON WEE JOHNNY (HIS PUBLISHER) by ROBERT BURNS |