 | The poems of Thomas Bailey Aldrich |  |
SANTO DOMINGO
After long days of angry sea and sky,The magic isle rose up from out the blue
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At first seen dimly through the mist, and then—
Groves of acacia; slender leaning stems
Of palm-trees weighted with their starry fronds;
Airs that, at dawn, had from their slumber risen
In bowers of spices; between shelving banks,
A river through whose limpid crystal gleamed,
Four fathoms down, the silvery, rippled sand;
Upon the bluff a square red tower, and roofs
Of cocoa-fibre lost among the boughs;
Hard by, a fort with crumbled parapet.
These took the fancy captive ere we reached
The longed-for shores; then swiftly in our thought
We left behind us the New World, and trod
The Old, and in a sudden vision saw
Columbus wandering from court to court,
A mendicant, with kingdoms in his hands.
| The poems of Thomas Bailey Aldrich | |