MOUNTAIN BROOK. In that soiled and sinful town Draggles in the murky mire; You shall curdle green with scum, But, you answer, "I must go "I must come to aid of men I must make the factory hum, Mountain brook, wild mountain brook, Heaven had planned the course you took. MOUNTAIN BROOK. Though the blossom soon must fade, SAINT AUGUSTINE. Saint Augustine, Saint Augustine, What memories come to me, While treading down your quaint old streets, Along the tropic sea! Where old Fort Marion rears his walls Of mouldering shells and sand, And green against an opal sky The tall palmettos stand. Here mocking-birds entrance the air And through the long gray Spanish moss Here orange gardens scent the breeze With wreaths of starry blooms, And citrons with the lemons hang Like gold in emerald glooms. Like Ponce de Leon, I have come, Old town, forever young, To find your bubbling Fount of Youth For ages sought and sung. Alas! I find you fresh and green, Blithe in your old-time joy; But man, for all his plaints and prayers, THE EVERGLADES. Vast, watery fields of slender waving grass; A river in a bramble-tangled pass, Where trumpet blossoms swing in scarlet pomp; White cranes on yonder cypress boughs alight, Then gliding through the gray-mossed forest's night, I wonder, as the reptile sinks from sight, What monster shapes are swimming down below. A NIGHT IN CUBA. Far out to sea the home-bound seabirds wing, Above me, from its broad-leaved sheath of green, An odorous oleander haunts the dusk. The moon seems fallen from her throne on high, Canopus quivers like a drop of dew. A-thrill with passion, pierced with bliss and pain, And pours a fervid and heart-broken strain, Now sweet, now bitter, from its trembling strands. O, lovelorn youth, your dark-brown liquid eyes |