Poems

ing wet abyss When the sun vanished, when the day went by, Nor turned her to the east, whereto the sun Was bounden with his majesties of gold, And the unwelcome and incredible day. THE FORTUNATE ISLANDS flushed as a rose's petal the moon floats low in the east, In a lavender twilight falling, refreshened the birds awake, Stirring the heart of the silence as night airs trouble the lake That all the day long lay dreaming, now that the heat has ceased, I am sick for a fortunate land, be it west that it lie or east, Where life is a lovely thing to possess for its own fair sake. I am sick for the dim sweet isle girt round with a rainy sea Mingled of many colours, flashing or windy or white, Or still as the face of the maiden you love at the fall of night, The fortunate far-off isle where the blest undying be, But I think no sail ever sailed or shone on the changing sea, Tho' the sound thereof and the savour shadow me day and night. But here in the passage of seasons, the watching of infinite seas, We have seen or have dreamed we beheld the islands that know not of change; Crowned with their shadowy trees, past over the seas that range, And girded about with a drowsy mist and a golden ease, Made sweet with the odour of hot thick flowers and the drone of bees, The islands unchanging endure in the stress of the seas that change. Ah, there in the light of the moon, in the islands of all desired, The days th...