Beautiful Florida! land of the flowers, <br />Home of the mocking bird, saucy and bold, <br />Sweet are the roses that perfume thy bowers, <br />And brilliant thy sunshine like burnished gold. <br /> <br />Soft are thy rivulets, gentle thy water-falls, <br />Rippling so merrily toward the broad sea; <br />Fringed with bright daisies, which bloom on thy borders, <br />E'en Nature herself pays a tribute to thee. <br /> <br />Sweeter and lovelier than all thy fair sisters, <br />Thy gentleness surely hath fame for thee won, <br />While thy star, not forgotten, shines forth in a glory <br />That crowns the best flag that waves under the sun. <br /> <br />Thy name brings a scent of the dogwood and myrtle, <br />The jessamine, too, comes in for a share, <br />With great yellow petals so heavy with perfume, <br />That can with the tube-rose's only compare. <br /> <br />Tho' large be the family, there's room for the fairest; <br />No house is too small for a family with love: <br />So Florida, thou who art brightest and dearest, <br />The 'Pet of the Household' forever shall prove. <br /> <br />Thy rivers are broad and thy lakes fringed with grasses, <br />The glint of the waves of the bright Santa Fe, <br />With her edging of cypress and long-floating mosses, <br />Forever are murmuring a sonnet to thee. <br /> <br />While high on a hill sits the Queen of the Villas, <br />Sweet Melrose! whose name is the least of her charms, <br />Waves a welcome to all, to come over the billows <br />And find a safe home 'neath her sheltering arms. <br /> <br />And so they are coming, the weak and the weary, <br />From near and from far, the strong and the brave, <br />All ready to drink of the life giving breezes, <br />The only Elixir that truly can save.<br /><br />Annie McCarer Darlington<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sweet-florida/
