Page 49 - Poetry-Romance

Sweet maiden, tell me why?”
“I think,” she says, “a sigh is due
To deepened Inspiration,
And this, again, is owing to
Some Reflex Excitation.”

“But, mantling on your cheek, I see
The lovely damask rose.
Declare, oh, dearest one, to me
Whence this rich luster flows? “
“Blushing is caused,” the maid replies,
“As Huxley well observes,
By much-dilated arteries
And Vaso-motor Nerves.”

“But tell me farther, maiden clear,
Of all these signs the reason.
Do not a blush, a sigh, a tear
Point to some central lesion?”
“Their cause” (she faintly makes reply)
“As yet escapes detection,
Unless—perchance—they signify
Some—cardiac affection.”

“Ah, maid, your diagnosis true
To sure proof is subjected,
Since, by contagion caught from you,
My heart, too, is infected.
And now, to cure us both, I trow,
One medicine and no more is,
Oh, take the sweet prescription now:
Sume Aurantii Flores.*”

*Take orange flowers.

— J. Harper Benson (Century Magazine, 1885)

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