Scarce knowing why, upon the little group
Of Eastern flowers we had not yet resigned:—
'Till one came softly smiling in my eyes,
And dried their tears with radiance from his own.
"At last it came—I knew not how it came—
But a tornado swept this sunny South,
And when I woke once more, I stood alone.
My senses sickened at the dismal waste,
And caring not, now all things bright were dead,
That a volcano rolled its burning tide