 | Poems |  |
255
POETS AND FLOWERS.
SIXTH GUESS.
High in the costly gardens of the great,
Still proud of its ancestral seat in ken
Of Andes or of Appalachian hills,
The Agave towers. Step after step is built
Above its weighty leaves the mass of bloom,
Slow-nurtured pyramid—with which compared,
Flowers at its base appear like shepherd's huts
Round those Nilotic structures that beheld
Isis and Orus and the Memphian gods,
Long ruined, they still firm.
Still proud of its ancestral seat in ken
Of Andes or of Appalachian hills,
The Agave towers. Step after step is built
Above its weighty leaves the mass of bloom,
Slow-nurtured pyramid—with which compared,
Flowers at its base appear like shepherd's huts
Round those Nilotic structures that beheld
Isis and Orus and the Memphian gods,
Long ruined, they still firm.
For whom but thee
(Although of foreign stock its pilèd wealth)
O great Blind Man of England, to whose sight,
Cancelled from earth, unrolled the wars of Heaven,
And sweetness of the primal Paradise,
For whom but thee, this mighty Agave blows!
(Although of foreign stock its pilèd wealth)
O great Blind Man of England, to whose sight,
Cancelled from earth, unrolled the wars of Heaven,
And sweetness of the primal Paradise,
For whom but thee, this mighty Agave blows!
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