There they had seen the orange grove
  Enwreath its gold with buds of white,
  As if themselves had taken flight,
And settled on the boughs above.

There kiss’d by every rosy mouth
  And press’d to every gentle breast,
  These pallid daughters of the West
Reigned in the sunshine of the South.

And thoughtful of the things divine,
  Were oft by many an altar found,
  Standing like white-robed angels round
The precincts of some sacred shrine.

And Violets, with dark blue eyes,
  Told how they spent the winter time,
  In Andalusia’s Eden clime,
Or ’neath Italia’s kindred skies.

Chiefly when evening’s golden gloom
  Veil’d Rome’s serenest ether soft,
  Bending in thoughtful musings oft,
Above the lost Alastor’s tomb;

Or the twin-poet’s; he who sings
  “A thing of beauty never dies,”
  Paying them back in fragrant sighs,
The love they bore all loveliest things.

The flower[110] whose bronz`ed cheeks recalls
  The incessant beat of wind and sun,
  Spoke of the lore his search had won
Upon Pompeii’s rescued walls.

How, in his antiquarian march,
  He crossed the tomb-strewn plain of Rome,
  Sat on some prostrate plinth, or clomb
The Coliseum’s topmost arch.

And thence beheld in glad amaze
  What Nero’s guilty eyes, aloof,
  Drank in from off his golden roof—­
The sun-bright city all ablaze: 

Ablaze by day with solar fires—­
  Ablaze by night with lunar beams,
  With lambent lustre on its streams,
And golden glories round its spires!

Thence he beheld that wondrous dome,
  That, rising o’er the radiant town,
  Circles, with Art’s eternal crown,
The still imperial brow of Rome.

Nor was the Marigold remiss,
  But told how in her crown of gold
  She sat, like Persia’s king of old,
High o’er the shores of Salamis;

And saw, against the morning sky,
  The white-sailed fleets their wings display;
  And ere the tranquil close of day,
Fade, like the Persian’s from her eye.

Fleets, with their white flags all unfurl’d,
  Inscribed with “Commerce,” and with “Peace,”
  Bearing no threatened ill to Greece,
But mutual good to all the world.

And various other flowers were seen: 
  Cowslip and Oxlip, and the tall
  Tulip, whose grateful hearts recall
The winter homes where they had been.

Some in the sunny vales, beneath
  The sheltering hills; and some, whose eyes
  Were gladdened by the southern skies,
High up amid the blooming heath.

Meek, modest flowers, by poets loved,
  Sweet Pansies, with their dark eyes fringed
  With silken lashes finely tinged,
That trembled if a leaf but moved: 

And some in gardens where the grass
  Mossed o’er the green quadrangle’s breast,
  There dwelt each flower, a welcome guest,
In crystal palaces of glass: