There is an island in the silent sea,

Whose marge the wistful waves lap listlessly—

An isle of rest for those who used to be.

For ne’er an echo wakes that towering wall,

Whose blackened crags answer none other call

Save the lone ocean’s rhythmic rise and fall.

Only the song the sea sings as she laves

That sleep-bound shore with sad caressing waves,

The while the dead sleep sweeter in their graves.

’Tis oh! so still they sleep within each tomb,

Cool in long shadows of the cypress gloom,

Breathing in death the moon-flower’s rank perfume.

They know not when slow barges on the mere

Enter the portals of that place austere—

Enter and so forever disappear!

And in this island of a silent sea,

Whose marge e’er wistful waves lap listlessly,

Is rest,—is peace for all eternity.