FERN-LAND
ROSE
Pale temptress, the night's revel be thine own,
Till love shall pall and rapture have its fill!
The morn's fresh light still finds me on a throne
Where care is not, nor blissful pains that kill.
JASMINE
Sweet, sweet my breath, oh, sweet beyond compare!
ROSE
Rare, rare the splendors of my regal crown!
BOTH
Choose which thou wilt, bold lover, yet beware
Lest to a luckless choice thou bendest down!
FERN-LAND
I
Hither, where a woven roof
Keeps the prying sun aloof
From wonderland,
From the fairies underland,—
Hither, where strange grasses grow
With their curling rootlets set
'Twixt the black roots serpentine,
Laurel roots that twist and twine
Toward the cloven path below
Of some cloud-born rivulet,—
This way enter
Fern-Land, and from rim to centre
All its secrets shall be thine.
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