Catholic Poetry

A SOUTHERN FLOWER

A flower of the pale, sad South,

Yet pale nor sad is she;

For she blooms on a wonderful tree,

That knoweth not blight nor drouth,

A certain miraculous tree

Our Lady has planted down South.

A rose, let me call you, dear girl;

A fadeless and thornless rose.

So richly your modesty shows

Its blushes bewjewll’d with pearl,

And a dew-drop of grace every pearl,

That I think of the mystical rose.

 But the Lord of the sweet and the fair,

(For they come from His beauty alone)

I pray Him that floweret so rare

No man may dare cull but His own,

That no other bosom may wear

This rose of the South has its own.

Father Edmund of the Heart of Mary, C.P. (Benjamin Hill), Mariae Corolla (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1898), 32-33.