To a Young Lady from a Foreign Clime

Thou sweet exotic, lovely brown !
No fair one could be sweeter, —
Young as thou art, thou wilt not frown
Upon an old man's metre.

Rich is the sky where thou wert born.
And gorgeous were the flowers ;

But yet I trust thou wilt not scorn
This cold blue sky of ours.
And though the flowers of Westmorland

Do not surcharge the wind
With burden of perfume so bland
As flowers of Western Ind ;

Yet are they sweet if they be sought
Where careless eyes would miss them ;

They crouch so low, as if they thought
A maid should stoop to kiss them.
Our little birds they are not deck'd

With hues of molten gems ;
Their modest plumes do not reflect
The rays of diadems.
But yet they twitter sweetly, sweetly,

Their little notes so clear,
Methinks they could not sing more fitly
To little maiden's ear.

There is a blackness in thine hair —
A deep black in thine eye —

That do not speak of English air.
But of a hotter sky
And there is something in the mouth,

Not easy to be told.
That marks thee of the passionate south,
And not of northern mould.
Then learn to love all simple things,

That pretty are and cool.
Look how the swallow dips its wings,
And glints along the pool ;
For it hath felt the Afric suns

Voluptuously hot.
Yet comes to rear its little ones

Beside the English cot
So may St thou keep the tropic glow

And the full joy of life,
Yet tame thy current to the flow
Of a cheerful English wife.