A garden Girded it round about with a belt of luxuriant blossoms, Filling the air with fragrance.

The house itself was of timbers Hewn from the cypress-tree, and carefully fitted together.
Large and low was the roof; and on slender columns supported, 895 Rose-wreathed, vine-encircled, a broad and spacious veranda, Haunt of the humming-bird and the bee, extended around it.
At each end of the house, amid the flowers of the garden, Stationed the dove-cots were, as love's perpetual symbol, Scenes of endless wooing, and endless contentions of rivals.

900 Silence reigned o'er the place.

The line of shadow and sunshine Ran near the tops of the trees; but the house itself was in shadow, And from its chimney-top, ascending and slowly expanding Into the evening air, a thin blue column of smoke rose.
In the rear of the house, from the garden gate, ran a pathway 905 Through the great groves of oak to the skirts of the limitless prairie, Into whose sea of flowers the sun was slowly descending.
Full in his track of light, like ships with shadowy canvas Hanging loose from their spars in a motionless calm in the tropics, Stood a cluster of trees, with tangled cordage of grapevines.

910 Just where the woodlands met the flowery surf of the prairie, Mounted upon his horse, with Spanish saddle and stirrups, Sat a herdsman, arrayed in gaiters and doublet of deerskin.
Broad and brown was the face that from under the Spanish sombrero Gazed on the peaceful scene, with the lordly look of its master.