| |
| ADIEU, fair isle! I love thy bowers, | |
| I love thy dark-eyed daughters there; | |
| The cool pomegranate’s scarlet flowers | |
| Look brighter in their jetty hair. | |
| |
| They praised my forehead’s stainless white; | 5 |
| And when I thirsted, gave a draught | |
| From the full clustering cocoa’s height, | |
| And smiling, blessed me as I quaffed. | |
| |
| Well pleased, the kind return I gave, | |
| And, clasped in their embraces’ twine, | 10 |
| Felt the soft breeze like Lethe ’s wave | |
| Becalm this beating heart of mine. | |
| |
| Why will my heart so wildly beat? | |
| Say, Seraphs, is my lot too blest, | |
| That thus a fitful, feverish heat | 15 |
| Must rifle me of health and rest? | |
| |
| Alas! I fear my native snows— | |
| A clime too cold, a heart too warm— | |
| Alternate chills—alternate glows— | |
| Too fiercely threat my flower-like form. | 20 |
| |
| The orange-tree has fruit and flowers; | |
| The grenadilla, in its bloom, | |
| Hangs o’er its high, luxuriant bowers, | |
| Like fringes from a Tyrian loom. | |
| |
| When the white coffee-blossoms swell, | 25 |
| The fair moon full, the evening long | |
| I love to hear the warbling bell, | |
| And sun-burnt peasant’s wayward song. | |
| |
| Drive gently on, dark muleteer, | |
| And the light seguidilla frame; | 30 |
| Fain would I listen still, to hear | |
| At every close thy mistress’ name. | |
| |
| Adieu, fair isle! the waving palm | |
| Is pencilled on thy purest sky; | |
| Warm sleeps the bay, the air is balm, | 35 |
| And, soothed to languor, scarce a sigh | |
| |
| Escapes for those I love so well, | |
| For those I ’ve loved and left so long; | |
| On me their fondest musings dwell, | |
| To them alone my sighs belong. | 40 |
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| On, on, my bark! blow, southern breeze! | |
| No longer would I lingering stay; | |
| ’T were better far to die with these | |
| Than live in pleasure far away. | |
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