| |
THE SANDY spits, the shore-locked lakes, | |
| Melt into open, moonlit sea; | |
| The soft Mediterranean breaks | |
| At my feet, free. | |
| |
| Dotting the fields of corn and vine, | 5 |
| Like ghosts and huge, gnarled olives stand; | |
| Behind, that lovely mountain-line! | |
| While by the strand | |
| |
| Cette, with its glistening houses white, | |
| Curves with the curving beach away | 10 |
| To where the lighthouse beacons bright | |
| Far in the bay. | |
| |
| Ah, such a night, so soft, so lone, | |
| So moonlit, saw me once of yore | |
| Wander unquiet, and my own | 15 |
| Vext heart deplore! | |
| |
| But now that trouble is forgot; | |
| Thy memory, thy pain, to-night, | |
| My brother! and thine early lot, | |
| Possess me quite. | 20 |
| |
| The murmur of this Midland deep | |
| Is heard to-night around thy grave | |
| There where Gibraltar’s cannoned steep | |
| O’erfrowns the wave. | |
| |
| For there, with bodily anguish keen, | 25 |
| With Indian heats at last fordone, | |
| With public toil and private teen, | |
| Thou sank’st, alone. | |
| |
| Slow to a stop, at morning gray, | |
| I see the smoke-crowned vessel come; | 30 |
| Slow round her paddles dies away | |
| The seething foam. | |
| |
| A boat is lowered from her side; | |
| Ah, gently place him on the bench! | |
| That spirit—if all have not yet died— | 35 |
| A breath might quench. | |
| |
| Is this the eye, the footstep fast, | |
| The mien of youth we used to see, | |
| Poor, gallant boy!—for such thou wast, | |
| Still art, to me. | 40 |
| |
| The limbs their wonted tasks refuse, | |
| The eyes are glazed, thou canst not speak; | |
| And whiter than thy white burnous | |
| That wasted cheek! | |
| |
| Enough! The boat, with quiet shock, | 45 |
| Unto its haven coming nigh, | |
| Touches, and on Gibraltar’s rock | |
| Lands thee, to die. * * * * * | |
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