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I
WILD is its nature, as it were a token, | |
| Born of the sunshine, and the stars, and sea; | |
| Grand as a passion felt but never spoken, | |
| Lonely and proud and free. | |
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| For when the Maker set its crown of beauty, | 5 |
| And for its home ordained the torrid ring, | |
| Assigning unto each its place and duty, | |
| He made the Palm a King. | |
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| So when in reverie I look and listen, | |
| Half dream-like floats, within my passive mind, | 10 |
| Why in the sun its branches gleam and glisten, | |
| And harp-wise beat the wind; | |
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| Why, when the sea-waves, heralding their tidings, | |
| Come roaring on the shore with crests of down, | |
| In grave acceptance of their sad confidings, | 15 |
| It bows its stately crown; | |
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| Why, in the death-like calms of night and morning, | |
| Its quivering spears of green are never still, | |
| But ever tremble, as at solemn warning | |
| A human heart may thrill; | 20 |
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| And also why it stands in lonely places, | |
| By the red desert or the sad sea shore, | |
| Or haunts the jungle, or the mountain graces | |
| Where eagles proudly soar! | |
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| It is a sense of kingly isolation, | 25 |
| Of royal beauty and enchanting grace, | |
| Proclaiming from the earliest creation | |
| The power and pride of race, | |
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| That has almost imbued it with a spirit, | |
| And made it sentient, although still a tree, | 30 |
| With dim perception that it might inherit | |
| An immortality. | |
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| The lines of kinship thus so near converging, | |
| It is not strange, O heart of mine, that I, | |
| While stars were shining and old ocean surging, | 35 |
| Should intercept a sigh. | |
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| It fell a-sighing when the faint wind, dying, | |
| Had kissed the tropic night a fond adieu— | |
| The starry cross on her warm bosom lying, | |
| Within the southern view. | 40 |
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| And when the crescent moon, the west descending, | |
| Drew o’er her face the curtain of the sea, | |
| In the rapt silence, eager senses lending, | |
| Low came the sigh to me. | |
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| God of my life! how can I ever render | 45 |
| The full sweet meaning sadly thus conveyed | |
| The full sad meaning, heart-breakingly tender, | |
| That through the cadence strayed. | |
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II
When the wild North-wind by the sun enchanted, | |
| Seeks the fair South, as lover beauty’s shrine, | 50 |
| It bears the moaning of the sorrow-haunted, | |
| Gloomy, storm-beaten Pine. | |
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| The waves of ocean catch the miserere, | |
| Far wafted seaward from the wintry main, | |
| They roll it on o’er reaches vast and dreary | 55 |
| With infinite refrain, | |
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| Until on coral shores, where endless Summer | |
| Waves golden banners round her queenly throne, | |
| The Palm enfolds the weary spirit roamer | |
| With low responsive moan. | 60 |
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| The sea-grape hears it, and the lush banana, | |
| In the sweet indolence of their repose; | |
| The frangipanni, like a crowned Sultana, | |
| The passion flower, and rose; | |
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| And the fierce tiger in his darksome lair, | 65 |
| Deep hid away beneath the bamboo-tree; | |
| All the wild habitants of earth and air, | |
| And of the sleeping sea. | |
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| It throws a spell of silence so enthralling, | |
| So breathless and intense and mystical, | 70 |
| Not the deep hush of skies when stars are falling | |
| Can fill the soul so full. | |
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| A death in life! A calm so deep and brooding | |
| It floods the heart with an ecstatic pain, | |
| Brimming with joy, yet fearfully foreboding | 75 |
| The dreadful hurricane. | |
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| Fail love, fly happiness, yield all things mortal! | |
| Fate, with the living, hath my small lot cast | |
| To dwell beside thee, Palm! Beyond death’s portal, | |
| Guard well my sleep at last. | 80 |
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| For I do love thee with a lover’s passion. | |
| Morn, noon, and night thou art forever grand,— | |
| Type of a glory God alone may fashion | |
| Within the Summer Land. | |
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| Sigh not, O Palm! Dread not the final hour; | 85 |
| For oft I ’ve seen within thy gracious shade, | |
| Amid rose-garlands fair, from Love’s own bower, | |
| Lithe, dusky forms displayed, | |
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| Clad with the magic of their beauty only; | |
| And it were strange if Paradise should be | 90 |
| Despoiled and made forever sad and lonely, | |
| Bereft of these and thee! | |
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