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| O BEAUTEOUS Southland! land of yellow air, | |
| That hangeth o’er thee slumbering, and doth hold | |
| The moveless foliage of thy valleys fair | |
| And wooded hills, like aureole of gold. | |
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| O thou, discovered ere the fitting time, | 5 |
| Ere Nature in completion turned thee forth! | |
| Ere aught was finished but thy peerless clime, | |
| Thy virgin breath allured the amorous North. | |
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| O land, God made thee wondrous to the eye! | |
| But his sweet singers thou hast never heard; | 10 |
| He left thee, meaning to come by and by, | |
| And give rich voice to every bright-winged bird. | |
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| He painted with fresh hues thy myriad flowers, | |
| But left them scentless: ah! their woful dole, | |
| Like sad reproach of their Creator’s powers, | 15 |
| To make so sweet fair bodies, void of soul. | |
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| He gave thee trees of odorous precious wood, | |
| But midst them all bloomed not one tree of fruit; | |
| He looked, but said not that his work was good, | |
| When leaving thee all perfumeless and mute. | 20 |
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| He blessed thy flowers with honey: every bell | |
| Looks earthward, sunward, with a yearning wist; | |
| But no bee-lover ever notes the swell | |
| Of hearts, like lips, a-hungering to be kist. | |
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| O strange land, thou art virgin! thou art more | 25 |
| Than fig-tree barren! Would that I could paint | |
| For others’ eyes the glory of the shore | |
| Where last I saw thee; but the senses faint | |
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| In soft delicious dreaming when they drain | |
| Thy wine of color. Virgin fair thou art, | 30 |
| All sweetly fertile, waiting with soft pain | |
| The spouse who comes to wake thy sleeping heart. | |
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