| |
| WITH pleasure not unmix’d with pain, | |
| They find their passage o’er, | |
| As with the Sabbath’s dawn they gain | |
| That islet’s rocky shore. | |
| Behind them is the sweltry main, | 5 |
| The torrid land before. | |
| |
| No sound was in the silence heard | |
| To break the air of balm, | |
| Save when the screaming tropic bird | |
| Wheel’d seaward in the calm: | 10 |
| The faint and heated breeze scarce stirr’d | |
| The streamers of the palm. | |
| |
| The shipman in the distance sees | |
| Across the glowing bay, | |
| The crowded, strawbuilt cottages, | 15 |
| Like sunburnt ricks of hay, | |
| Beneath the tall banana trees, | |
| Bask in the morning ray. | |
| |
| And as that self-devoted band | |
| Of christian hearts drew near, | 20 |
| No cool and bracing current fann’d | |
| The lifeless atmosphere;— | |
| Why should they seek that savage land | |
| So desolate and drear? | |
| |
| In faith, those far-off shores they trod, | 25 |
| This humble six or seven, | |
| And through those huts of matted sod | |
| Shall spread the gospel leaven, | |
| Till each becomes a house of God, | |
| A mercy gate of Heaven. | 30 |
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