Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/366

THE CARIB SEA Sought alone what might delight you,—

Ah, how sweet, how far, how strange!

Yet, though scarcely else anear you

Than Tithonus to Aurore,

I am still by Time requited,

Still can vaunt, as when we plighted,

Sight to see you, ear to hear you,

Voice to sing you, if no more.

And in thought I yet behold you

Nearing the enchanted zone,—

(With delight of life the stronger

As we sailed, each blue league longer,

Toward the shore of which I told you,

And the stars myself had known),—

Wondering at the hue beneath you

Of the restless shining waves,

Asking of the palm and coral,—

Of the white cascades—the floral

Ridges waiting long to wreathe you

With the blooms our Norseland craves.

Winds enow since then have kissed you,

On their way to bless or blight;

Little may these songs recover

Of that dream-life swiftly over,—

Nay, but Love, a moment list you,

Since none else can set them right.

More and ever more, the while you

Sailed where every distance gleams,

Passed all sorrow, died all anger,

In the clime of love and languor,

Till we reached the mist-hung isle you

Called the haunted Isle of Dreams.

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