ISLANDS

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As launched upon the loneliness of time

We float and dream of what the waves conceal,

Each like a thought that rolls with rapid zeal

Succeeded by a breaker of fierce crime,

Or curling passion, or a rhythm of rhyme,

Or indolent ripple sighing at the keel—

Beyond us, though our fretted longings reel,

The lulled horizon sleeps, the still hours climb—

So toss our weary ships, till from afar

Our visioned island rises suddenly,

Where palaces like cloudy colours are,

With scented gardens terraced to the sea,

The silver steps to our appointed star

Where gleam the spires that pierce eternity.

1917


Many things I'd find to charm you,

Books and scarves and silken socks,

All the seven rainbow colours

Black and white with 'broidered clocks.

Then a stick of polished whalebone

And a coat of tawny fur,

And a row of gleaming bottles

Filled with rose-water and myrrh.

Rarest brandy of the 'fifties,

Old liqueurs in leather kegs,

Golden Sauterne, copper sherry

And a nest of plover's eggs.

Toys of tortoise-shell and jasper,

Little boxes cut in jade;

Handkerchiefs of finest cambric,

Damask cloths and dim brocade.

Six musicians of the Magyar,

Madness making harmony;

And a bed austere and narrow

With a quilt from Barbary.

You shall have a bath of amber,

A Venetian looking-glass,

And a crimson-chested parrot

On a lawn of terraced grass.

Then a small Tanagra statue

Found anew in ruins old,

Or an azure plate from Persia,

Or my hair in plaits of gold;

Or my scalp that like an Indian

You shall carry for a purse,

Or my spilt blood in a goblet ...

Or a volume of my verse.

1916


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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