Were lost in the blue sky. Just where the trees
Met the bright waters, was a lighter space;
And, like the pillars of a mighty temple,
The pine, the beech, the maple stretched away,
In long and stately avenues—their dome
The glorious heaven! This was all nature's work,
And now was but as it had been for years.
But there were fragile flowers, and tender shrubs,
Whose feminine frail beauty asked for more
Than the rude nursing of the summer breeze.
There was the red rose, like an evening cloud;
The white rose, pale as pining for the song
Of her now absent love, the nightingale;
The orange tree—that miser of the spring,
Amassing gold and silver; jessamine,
Showering down pearl and amber; myrtle plants;
And, where the sun shone warmest, olives green:—
For Inez had collected all that, once,
Her early youth had loved in Arragon;
And, with all woman's sweet solicitude,
She had brought those, too, of his native land,
Her lover's England;—there, the violet shed
The treasures of its purple Araby;
The primrose, pale as the last star that fades
Before the day-break; and the honeysuckle,
Hung as around an English cottage walls.
—No marvel woman should love flowers, they bear
So much of fanciful similitude
To her own history; like herself, repaying,
With such sweet interest, all the cherishing
