Page:The poems of Emma Lazarus volume 1.djvu/193

Full well knows she how wide and fair extend
Her groves bright-flowered, her tangled ever glades,
Majestic streams that indolently wend
Through lush savanna or dense forest shades,
Where the brown buzzard flies
To broad bayous neath hazy-golden skies.

Hers is the savage splendor of the swamp,
With pomp of scarlet and of purple bloom,
Where blow warm, furtive breezes faint and damp,
Strange insects whir, and stalking bitterns boom
Where from stale waters dead
Oft looms the great-jawed alligator’s head.

Her wealth, her beauty, and the blight on these,
Of all she is aware : luxuriant woods,
Fresh, living, sunlit, in her dream she sees;
And ever midst those verdant solitudes
The soldier s wooden cross,
Overgrown by creeping tendrils and rank moss.

Was hers a dream of empire ? was it sin ?
And is it well that all was borne in vain ?
She knows no more than one who slow doth win,
After fierce fever, conscious life again,
Too tired, too weak, too sad,
By the new light to be or stirred or glad.