| WHERE the remote Bermudas ride | |
| In the ocean's bosom unespied, | |
| From a small boat that row'd along | |
| The listening woods received this song: | |
| |
| 'What should we do but sing His praise | 5 |
| That led us through the watery maze | |
| Unto an isle so long unknown, | |
| And yet far kinder than our own? | |
| Where He the huge sea-monsters wracks, | |
| That lift the deep upon their backs, | 10 |
| He lands us on a grassy stage, | |
| Safe from the storms' and prelates' rage: | |
| He gave us this eternal Spring | |
| Which here enamels everything, | |
| And sends the fowls to us in care | 15 |
| On daily visits through the air: | |
| He hangs in shades the orange bright | |
| Like golden lamps in a green night, | |
| And does in the pomegranates close | |
| Jewels more rich than Ormus shows: | 20 |
| He makes the figs our mouths to meet | |
| And throws the melons at our feet; | |
| But apples plants of such a price, | |
| No tree could ever bear them twice. | |
| With cedars chosen by His hand | 25 |
| From Lebanon He stores the land; | |
| And makes the hollow seas that roar | |
| Proclaim the ambergris on shore. | |
| He cast (of which we rather boast) | |
| The Gospel's pearl upon our coast; | 30 |
| And in these rocks for us did frame | |
| A temple where to sound His name. | |
| O, let our voice His praise exalt | |
| Till it arrive at Heaven's vault, | |
| Which thence (perhaps) rebounding may | 35 |
| Echo beyond the Mexique bay!' | |
| |
| Thus sung they in the English boat | |
| A holy and a cheerful note: | |
| And all the way, to guide their chime, | |
| With falling oars they kept the time. | 40 |
