ts,
Of odorous blooms and sweet contents,
Upon the weary passers-by.

Ah, few but haggard brows had part
Below that street's uneven crown,
And there the murmurs of the mart
Swarmed faint as hums of drowsy noon.
With voices chiming in quaint tune
From sun-soaked hulls long wharves adown,
The singing sailors rough and brown
Won far melodious renown,
Here, listening children ceasing play,
And mothers sad their well-a-way,
In this old breezy sea-board town.

Ablaze on distant banks she knew,
Spreading their bowls to catch the sun,
Magnificent Dutch tulips grew
With pompous color overrun.
By light and snow from heaven won
Their misty web azaleas spun;
Low lilies pale as any nun,
Their pensile bells rang one by one;
And spicing all the summer air
Gold honeysuckles everywhere
Their trumpets blew in unison.

Than where blood-cored carnations stood
She fancied richer hues might be,
Scents rarer than the purple hood
Curled over in the fleur-de-lis.
Small skill in learned names had she,
Yet whatso wealth of land or sea
Had ever stored her memory,
She decked its varied imagery
Where, in the highest of the row
Upon a sill more white than snow,
She nourished a pomegranate-tree.

Some lover from a foreign clime,
Some roving gallant of the main,
Had brought it on a gay spring-time,
And told her of the nacar stain
The thing would wear when bloomed again.
Therefore all garden growths in vain
Their glowing ranks swept through her brain,
The plant was knit by subtile chain
To all the balm of Southern zones,
The incenses of Eastern thrones,
The tinkling hem of Aaron's train.

The almond shaking in the sun
On some high place ere day begin,
Where winds of myrrh and cinnamon
Between the tossing plumes have been,
It called before her, and its kin
The fragrant savage balaustine
Grown from the ruined ravelin
That tawny leopards couch them in;
But this, if rolling in from seas
It only caught the salt-fumed breeze,
Would have a grace they might not win.

And for the fruit that it should bring,
One globe she pictured, bright and near,
Crimson, and throughly perfuming
All airs that brush its shining sphere.
In its translucent atmosphere
Afrite and Princess reappear,--
Through painted panes the scattered spear
Of sunrise scarce so warm and clear,--
And pulped with such a golden juice,