Page:Songs from the Southern Seas and Other Poems (1873).djvu/15

 Nor gold nor silver are the words set here,
 * Nor rich-wrought chasing on design of art;

But rugged relics of an unknown sphere
 * "Where fortune chanced I played one time apart.

I say not this to pity move, or praise,—
 * This little, faulty book is all my own.

In which I've writ of men and things and ways
 * Uncouth and rough as Austral ironstone.

It may be, I have left the higher gleams
 * Of shies and flowers unheeded or forgot,

It may be so,—but, looking back, it seems
 * When I was with them I beheld them not.

I was no rambling poet, but a man
 * Hard-pressed to dig and delve, with naught of ease

The hot day through, save when the evening's fan
 * Of sea-winds rustled through the kindly trees.

It may be so; but when I think I smile
 * At my poor hand and brain to paint the charms

Of God's first-blazoned canvas! here the aisle
 * Moonlit and deep of reaching gothic arms