She left the palms of Palestine
To sit beneath the Norland pine.
She sang the musky Orient strains
Where Winter swept the snowy plains.
Their natures met like night and morn
What time the morning-star is born.
The child that from their meeting grew
Hung, like that star, between the two.
The glossy night his mother shed
From her long hair was on his head:
But in its shade they saw arise
The morning of his father's eyes.
Beneath the Orient's tawny stain
Wandered the Norseman's crimson vein:
Beneath the Northern force was seen
The Arab sense, alert and keen.
His were the Viking's sinewy hands,
The arching foot of Eastern lands.
And in his soul conflicting strove
Northern indifference, Southern love;