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Rome, May 1861
I ‘NOW give us lands where the olives grow,’ | |
| Cried the North to the South, | |
| ‘Where the sun with a golden mouth can blow | |
| Blue bubbles of grapes down a vineyard-row!’ | |
| Cried the North to the South. | 5 |
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| ‘Now give us men from the sunless plain,’ | |
| Cried the South to the North, | |
| ‘By need of work in the snow and the rain, | |
| Made strong, and brave by familiar pain!’ | |
| Cried the South to the North. | 10 |
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II ‘Give lucider hills and intenser seas,’ | |
| Said the North to the South, | |
| ‘Since ever by symbols and bright degrees | |
| Art, childlike, climbs to the dear Lord’s knees,’ | |
| Said the North to the South. | 15 |
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| ‘Give strenuous souls for belief and prayer,’ | |
| Said the South to the North, | |
| ‘That stand in the dark on the lowest stair, | |
| While affirming of God, “He is certainly there,”’ | |
| Said the South to the North. | 20 |
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III ‘Yet O, for the skies that are softer and higher!’ | |
| Sigh’d the North to the South; | |
| ‘For the flowers that blaze, and the trees that aspire, | |
| And the insects made of a song or a fire!’ | |
| Sigh’d the North to the South. | 25 |
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| ‘And O, for a seer to discern the same!’ | |
| Sigh’d the South to the North; | |
| ‘For a poet’s tongue of baptismal flame, | |
| To call the tree or the flower by its name!’ | |
| Sigh’d the South to the North. | 30 |
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IV The North sent therefore a man of men | |
| As a grace to the South; | |
| And thus to Rome came Andersen. | |
| —‘Alas, but must you take him again?’ | |
| Said the South to the North. | 35 |
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