A red cathedral's tiles, a tapering spire
Piercing her gaunt zinc roofs, the city lies.
Dim blue hills rise about her circle-wise,
And flame trees deck her steep white streets with fire.
While tremulous as some Aeolian choir
Beside her river-way the bamboo sighs;
And to a burning sweep of turquoise skies
Ascends that slow sad song of lost desire.
Stranger than all her sisters of the South,
With languid warmth she lifts her sun-browned arms
In eager longing towards the distant sea;
This Northern witch with young and glowing mouth;
And half-alluring, half-elusive charms,
That bear the tropic's seal of mystery.
Alice Gore-Jones, 1917