Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Oceanica: Vol. XXXI. 1876–79. | | | | Various Islands: Madeira | | The Island of Madeira | | Richard Chenevix Trench (1807–1886) |
| | | THOUGH never axe until a later day | |
| Assailed thy forests’ huge antiquity, | |
| Yet elder Fame had many tales of thee,— | |
| Whether Phœnician shipman far astray | |
| Had brought uncertain notices away | 5 |
| Of islands dreaming in the middle sea; | |
| Or that man’s heart, which struggles to be free | |
| From the old worn-out world, had never stay | |
| Till, for a place to rest on, it had found | |
| A region out of ken,—that happier isle, | 10 |
| Which the mild ocean-breezes blow around,— | |
| Where they who thrice upon this mortal stage | |
| Had kept their hands from wrong, their hearts from guile, | |
| Should come at length, and live a tearless age. | | | | |
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