Francis Joseph Sherman

February 3, 1871 – June 15, 1926 / New Brunswick

In The South

In any other land, now,
Are there nights like these?
The white moon wanders up
Among the palm-trees;
And hardly any wind falls

Upon the purple seas.

More gold than Cortes, even,
Touched in any dream
Sank half-an-hour ago
Deep in the Gulf Stream:
Like fine dust of it
The few clouds seem.

And hark! from the Convent
One slow bell:
There’s an old garden there,—
Ah! if I could tell
Half how sweet the jazmin
And diamela smell.

I think that I am glad, here,
And deem the moment good.
And yet—there’s the North Star!...
As if one ever could
Forget the gray ways Night comes in
Now, in the old wood.
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