Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MAGNOLIA-GRANDIFLORA, by CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MAGNOLIA-GRANDIFLORA, by             Poem Explanation         Poet's Biography
First Line: Majestic flower! How purely beautiful
Subject(s): Holidays; Trees


Majestic flower! How purely beautiful
Thou art, as rising from thy bower of green,
Those dark and glossy leaves so thick and full,
Thou standest like a high-born forest queen
Among thy maidens clustering round so fair,-
I love to watch thy sculptured form unfolding,
And look into thy depths, to image there
A fairy cavern, and while thus beholding,
And while thy breeze floats o'er thee, matchless flower,
I breathe the perfume, delicate and strong,
That comes like incense from thy petal-bower;
My fancy roams those southern woods along,
Beneath that glorious tree, where deep among
The unsunned leaves thy large white flower-cups hung!


THERE, down Salerno's bay,
In deserts far away,
Over whose solitudes
The dread malaria broods,
No labour tills the land,
Only the fierce brigand,
Or shepherd, wan and lean,
O'er the wide plains is seen.
Yet there, a lovely dream,
There Grecian temples gleam,
Whose form and mellowed tone
Rival the Parthenon.
The Sybarite no more
Comes hither to adore,
With perfumed offering,
The ocean god and king.
The deity is fled
Long since, but, in his stead,
The smiling sea is seen,
The Doric shafts between;
And round the time-worn base
Climb vines of tender grace,
And Paestum's roses still
The air with fragrance fill.






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