| |
| COME, take our boy, and we will go | |
| Before our cabin-door; | |
| The winds shall bring us, as they blow, | |
| The murmurs of the shore; | |
| And we will kiss his young blue eyes, | 5 |
| And I will sing him, as he lies, | |
| Songs that were made of yore; | |
| I ’ll sing, in his delighted ear, | |
| The island lays thou lov’st to hear. | |
| |
| And thou, while stammering I repeat, | 10 |
| Thy country’s tongue shalt teach; | |
| ’T is not so soft, but far more sweet, | |
| Than my own native speech: | |
| For thou no other tongue didst know, | |
| When, scarcely twenty moons ago, | 15 |
| Upon Tahete’s beach, | |
| Thou cam’st to woo me to be thine, | |
| With many a speaking look and sign. | |
| |
| I knew thy meaning,—thou didst praise | |
| My eyes, my locks of jet; | 20 |
| Ah! well for me they won thy gaze,— | |
| But thine were fairer yet! | |
| I ’m glad to see my infant wear | |
| Thy soft blue eyes and sunny hair, | |
| And when my sight is met | 25 |
| By his white brow and blooming cheek, | |
| I feel a joy I cannot speak. | |
| |
| Come talk of Europe’s maids with me, | |
| Whose necks and cheeks, they tell, | |
| Outshine the beauty of the sea, | 30 |
| White foam and crimson shell. | |
| I ’ll shape like theirs my simple dress, | |
| And bind like them each jetty tress,— | |
| A sight to please thee well; | |
| And for my dusky brow will braid | 35 |
| A bonnet like an English maid. | |
| |
| Come, for the soft low sunlight calls, | |
| We lose the pleasant hours; | |
| ’T is lovelier than these cottage walls, | |
| That seat among the flowers. | 40 |
| And I will learn of thee a prayer, | |
| To Him, who gave a home so fair, | |
| A lot so blessed as ours,— | |
| The God who made, for thee and me, | |
| This sweet lone isle amid the sea. | 45 |
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