Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Oceanica: Vol. XXXI. 1876–79. | | | | Various Islands: St. Helena | | Passing St. Helena | | Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836–1907) |
| | | AND this is St. Helena? This the spot | |
| Haunted forever by an Emperor! | |
| Methinks ’t were meet that such a royal ghost | |
| Should pace these gloomy battlements by night! | |
| —The ship veered off, and we passed out to sea: | 5 |
| And in the first fair moonrise of the month, | |
| I watched the island, till it seemed a speck | |
| No bigger than Astarte. Year by year, | |
| The picture came and went upon my brain, | |
| Like frost-work on the windows: in my dreams | 10 |
| I saw those jagged turrets of dull rock | |
| Uplifted in the moonlight; saw the gulls | |
| Darting in sudden circles; heard the low | |
| And everlasting anthem of the sea! | |
| And from the nether world a voice would come, | 15 |
| Here did they bring the Corsican, and here | |
| Died the chained eagle by these dismal cliffs! | | | | |
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