  Thou princess of the sea, how thou hast grown, Since last I saw thee, and how beautiful! The ocean-breezes must to thee have blown The ardent health which nothing wrong could dull, The blood of races mingle in thy veins, The spirit of two worlds have met in thee, Most genial and free thou here dost reign, A charming princess of the western sea. It was with thee I did a year abide, A year so antithetically mixed, When painful doubts forbade me to confide, And life’s career, confessed, still was unfixed; May be it was thy spirit, which I felt, That gave me song and Oriental dreams, And when in Occidental shrines I knelt, Of Oriental truth there came bright gleams. And hath not doubts been harassing my soul, And had I shunned to give a heed to fears, But followed—like thyself—the Spirit’s call, How different had been the lapsing years; Perhaps I then with glory now could meet The growth and life, I see on every hand, But now I sit in sorrow at thy feet, And find my name was written in the sand. |
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