C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Louisiana

Paraphrased from ‘Les Feuilles Volantes,’ by Maurice Francis Egan

LAND of the Sun! where Fancy free

Weaveth her woof beneath a sky of gold,

Another Andalusia, thee I see;

Thy charming memories my heart-strings hold,

As if the song of birds had o’er them rolled.

In thy fresh groves, where scented orange glows,

Circle vague loves about my longing heart;

Thy dark banana-trees, when soft wind flows,

In concert weird take up their sombre part,

As evening shadows, listening, float and dart.

’Neath thy green domes, where the lianas cling,

Show tropic flowers with wide-opened eyes,

With arteries afire till morn-birds sing;

More than old Werthier, in new love’s surprise,

Stand on the threshold of thy Paradise.

Son of the North, I, of the realm of snows,—

Vision afar, but always still a power,—

In these soft nights and in the days of rose,

Dreaming I feel, e’en in the saddest hour,

Within my heart unclose a golden flower.