Creole Serenade

Under moss-draped oak and pine,
Murmuring, falls the fountained stream;
In its pool the lilies shine,
Silvery, each a glimmering gleam.

Roses bloom and roses die
In the warm rose-scented dark,
Where the firefly, like an eye,
Winks and glows, a golden spark.

Amber-belted through the night
Drifts the alabaster moon,
Like a big magnolia white
On the fragrant heart of June.

With a broken syrinx there,
With bignonia overgrown,
Is it Pan in hoof and hair?--
Or his image carved from stone?

See! her casement’s jessamines part;--
Through their stars and swooning scent
Like the moon she leans. O heart,
’T is another firmament!

Sings:

The dim verbena drugs the dusk
With lemon odors; everywhere
Wan heliotropes breathe drowsy musk
Into the jasmine-heavy air;
The moss-rose bursts its dewy husk
And spills its attar there.

The orange at thy casement flings
Star-censers oozing rich perfumes;
The clematis, long-petaled, swings
Deep clusters of dark purple blooms;
With flowers, like moons or sylphide wings,
Magnolias light the glooms.

Awake, awake from sleep!
Thy balmy hair,
Unbounden, deep on deep,
Like blossoms there,--
That dew and fragrance weep,--
Will fill the night with prayer.
Awake, awake from sleep!

And dreaming here it seems to me
A dryad’s bosom grows confessed,
Nude in the dark magnolia tree,
That rustles with the murmurous West--
Or is it but some bloom I see,
White as thy virgin breast?

Through Southern heavens above are rolled
A million feverish stars, that burst,
Like gems, from out the caskets old
Of night, with fires that throb and thirst:
An oleander, showering gold,
The heav’n seems, star-immersed.

Unseal, unseal thine eyes!--
Too long her rod
Queen Mab sways o’er their skies
In realms of Nod!--
Their starry majesties
Will fill the night with God.
Unseal, unseal thine eyes!