That rippled and waved in the breeze,
while the honey-bees hummed in the blossoms
For there, where the impetuous Rhone,
leaping down from the Switzerland mountains,
And the silver-lipped soft flowing Saone,
meeting, kiss and commingle together,
Down-winding by vineyards and leas,
by the orchards of fig trees and olives,
To the island-gemmed, sapphire-blue seas
of the glorious Greeks and the Romans;
Aye, there, on the vine covered shore,
'mid the mulberry trees and the olives,
Dwelt his blue-eyed and beautiful Flore,
with her hair like a wheat field at harvest,
All rippled and tossed by the breeze,
and her cheeks like the glow of the morning,
Far away o'er the emerald seas,
ere the sun lifts his brow from the billows,
Or the red-clover fields when the bees,
singing sip the sweet cups of the blossoms.
Wherever he wandered
--alone in the heart of the wild Huron forests,
Or cruising the rivers unknown
to the land of the Crees or Dakotas--
His heart lingered still on the Rhone,
'mid the mulberry-trees and the vineyards,
Fast-fettered and bound by the zone
that girdled the robes of his darling.

Till the red Harvest Moon [71]