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(From The Spirit of Discovery by Sea)
THE FAVORING gales invite; the bowsprit bears | |
| Right onward to the fearful shade; more black | |
| The cloudy spectre towers; already fear | |
| Shrinks at the view aghast and breathless. Hark! | |
| ’T was more than the deep murmur of the surge | 5 |
| That struck the ear; whilst through the lurid gloom | |
| Gigantic phantoms seem to lift in air | |
| Their misty arms; yet, yet,—bear boldly on,— | |
| The mist dissolves; seen through the parting haze, | |
| Romantic rocks, like the depictured clouds, | 10 |
| Shine out; beneath, a blooming wilderness | |
| Of varied wood is spread, that scents the air; | |
| Where fruits of “golden rind,” thick interspersed | |
| And pendent, through the mantling umbrage gleam | |
| Inviting. Cypress here, and stateliest pine, | 15 |
| Spire o’er the nether shades, as emulous | |
| Of sole distinction where all nature smiles. | |
| Some trees, in sunny glades alone their head | |
| And graceful stem uplifting, mark below | |
| The turf with shadow; whilst in rich festoons | 20 |
| The flowery lianes braid their boughs; meantime | |
| Choirs of innumerous birds of liveliest song | |
| And brightest plumage, flitting through the shades, | |
| With nimble glance are seen; they, unalarmed, | |
| Now near in airy circles sing, then speed | 25 |
| Their random flight back to their sheltering bowers, | |
| Whose silence, broken only by their song, | |
| From the foundation of this busy world, | |
| Perhaps had never echoed to the voice, | |
| Or heard the steps of Man. What rapture fired | 30 |
| The strangers’ bosoms, as from glade to glade | |
| They passed, admiring all, and gazing still | |
| With new delight! ’T is solitude around; | |
| Deep solitude, that on the gloom of woods | |
| Primeval fearful hangs: a green recess | 35 |
| Now opens in the wilderness; gay flowers | |
| Of unknown name purple the yielding sward; | |
| The ring-dove murmurs o’er their head, like one | |
| Attesting tenderest joy; but mark the trees, | |
| Where, slanting through the gloom, the sunshine rests! | 40 |
| Beneath, a moss-grown monument appears, | |
| O’er which the green banana gently waves | |
| Its long leaf; and an aged cypress near | |
| Leans, as if listening to the streamlet’s sound | |
| That gushes from the adverse bank; but pause,— | 45 |
| Approach with reverence! Maker of the world, | |
| There is a Christian’s cross! and on the stone | |
| A name, yet legible amid its moss,— | |
| Anna! | |
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