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An Australian Rose
TO R. M. P.
TO her of gracious gifts, whose graceful penBecomes a fairy wand in her frail hand,
Flashing the sunlight of her Austral land
On the slim maidens and brown-bearded men
Who live their lives for us at her command,
I said —“I always think of you as when,
Like one entranced in an enchanted glen,
You stood one night amidst a madcap band.
With red lips parted, and a roseleaf flush
Painting the pearly pallor of your face,
Mute, motionless, in an expectant hush,
Your dreamy eyes like stars shone into space.”
Softly she answer'd with a shadowy blush—
“My soul first stirred to life in that fair place!”