| ALL day to watch the blue wave curl and break, | |
| All night to hear it plunging on the shore— | |
| In this sea-dream such draughts of life I take, | |
| I cannot ask for more. | |
| |
| Behind me lie the idle life and vain, | 5 |
| The task unfinished, and the weary hours; | |
| That long wave softly bears me back to Spain | |
| And the Alhambra's towers! | |
| |
| Once more I halt in Andalusian Pass, | |
| To list the mule-bells jingling on the height; | 10 |
| Below, against the dull esparto grass, | |
| The almonds glimmer white. | |
| |
| Huge gateways, wrinkled, with rich grays and browns, | |
| Invite my fancy, and I wander through | |
| The gable-shadowed, zigzag streets of towns | 15 |
| The world's first sailors knew. | |
| |
| Or, if I will, from out this thin sea-haze | |
| Low-lying cliffs of lovely Calais rise; | |
| Or yonder, with the pomp of olden days, | |
| Venice salutes my eyes. | 20 |
| |
| Or some gaunt castle lures me up its stair; | |
| I see, far off, the red tiled hamlets shine, | |
| And catch, through slits of windows here and there, | |
| Blue glimpses of the Rhine. | |
| |
| Again I pass Norwegian fjord and fell, | 25 |
| And through bleak wastes to where the sunset's fires | |
| Light up the white-walled Russian citadel, | |
| The Kremlin's domes and spires. | |
| |
| And now I linger in green English lanes, | |
| By garden-plots of rose and heliotrope; | 30 |
| And now I face the sudden pelting rains | |
| On some lone Alpine slope. | |
| |
| Now at Tangier, among the packed bazaars, | |
| I saunter, and the merchants at the doors | |
| Smile, and entice me: here are jewels like stars, | 35 |
| And curved knives of the Moors; | |
| |
| Cloths of Damascus, strings of amber dates; | |
| What would Howadji—silver, gold, or stone? | |
| Prone on the sun-scorched plain outside the gates | |
| The camels make their moan. | 40 |
| |
| All this is mine, as I lie dreaming here, | |
| High on the windy terrace, day by day; | |
| And mine the children's laughter, sweet and clear, | |
| Ringing across the bay. | |
| |
| For me the clouds; the ships sail by for me; | 45 |
| For me the petulant sea-gull takes its flight; | |
| And mine the tender moonrise on the sea, | |
| And hollow caves of night. | |
