The North And The South

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I
    "Now give us lands where the olives grow,"
    Cried the North to the South,
    "Where the sun with a golden mouth can blow
    Blow bubbles of grapes down a vineyard-row!"
    Cried the North to the South.

    "Now give us men from the sunless plain,"
    Cried the South to the North,
    "By need of work in the snow and rain,
    Made strong, and brave by familiar pain!"
    Cried the South to the North.

II
    "Give lucider hills and intenser seas,"
    Said the North to the South.
    "Since ever by symbols and bright degrees
    Art, childlike, climbs to the dear Lord's knees,"
    Said the North to the South.

    "Give strenuous souls for belief and prayer",
    Said the South to the North,
    "That stand in the dark on the lowest stair,
    While affirming of God 'He is certainly there',"
    Said the South to the North.

III
    "Yet oh, for the skies that are softer and higher!"
    Sighed the North to the South;
    "For the flowers that blaze, and the trees that aspire,
    And the insects made of a song or a fire!"
    Sighed the North to the South.

    "And oh, for a seer to discern the same!"
    Sighed the South to the North;
    "For a poet's tongue of baptismal flame,
    To call the tree or the flower by its name!"
    Sighed the South to the North.

IV
    The North sent therefore a man of men,
    As a grace to the South;
    And thus to Rome came Andersen.
    "Alas, but must you take him again?"
    Said the South to the North.