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THE ISLAND OF TREES.
I
It was the Santa Trinidada's keelCleaving the ripples of the Southern Sea,
It was the careful master at the wheel,
Guiding the good ship well and tenderly;
And aye he watched the gilded cedar reel
Deep in the blue. “The wind sits well,” quoth he,
“To-morrow, an it may God's mother please,
“We will be anchored at the Isle of Trees!”
II
“To-morrow, sayst thou? then to-morrow's sun“Shall light me to my chosen, quiet home;
“I am nigh sick to see the slow day done,
“That I may rest me, never more to roam;
“Far from the feet of men.” So answered one,
And gazed away into the farthest foam,
Where Night was making stars: the master heard,
And shook his white beard at the woeful word.
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III
For he was young who spake it, and his faceGentle and fair; upon his forehead high
Twenty quick summers had not left a trace,
Or dimmed a sparkle in the earnest eye
Whence, like a prisoned bird from durance-place,
His soul looked upward to its native sky;
His lip was fitter for a lover's song,
What could it tell of sorrow or of wrong?
IV
Was he not young Hypolito, whose fameTo Cordova the old gave brighter glory
Than all her cavaliers? was not his name
A word for ladies' lips and poet's story?
Had not his boyish wisdom put to shame
The laboured centuries of sages hoary?
He, for whose smile the pale-eyed scholar prayed;
He, for whose glance the gay mantilla stayed!
V
Why doth he leave the city of the sun—That ancient city in the Spanish land?
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Send him to seek the billow-belted sand?
Why doth he scorn the garlands he hath won!—
Alas, I know not! He whose high command
Shall wake white Truth from her eternal rest
May bare the workings of one human breast.
VI
The lamp low-burning when the night was still,To gloom and grief had lighted him the more;
The fruit of knowledge of the good and ill
Seemed bitter dust and ashes at the core:
It was a curse to thirst for Wisdom still,
And thirst the fiercer when the draught was o'er;
To learn the latest lesson Wisdom brings—
“Wisdom is vainest of all earthly things.”
VII
His laurel-guerdon of the world's good wordWhich young hearts perish in the strife to wear,
Sate on a brow with strangest passion stirred—
With aimless longings, and with causeless care;
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In the broad hollow of the general ear;
But to his own soul clarion-tongued: to tell
Such sorrows needeth not; ye know them well.
VIII
And men smooth-fronted, passionless, and calm,And many an eloquently silent book
Taught him of cold Philosophy the charm,
How he might sit aloof and smiling look
On Life's hard fight: but apathy of Harm
Is apathy of Joy; he could not brook
To lose the visions of his passionate thought,
Though but to know them vain, quick penance brought.
IX
So from the struggle and the dust of life—The inextinguishable human fight,
Where souls are deafened by the din of strife,
And battle blindly, dreaming of the right,
He will be gone—and where the skies are rife
With fresher breathing-stuff will take delight;
And there, he saith, his lonely home shall be,
Where the green island slumbers on the sea.
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X
And when the twelve white winters, year by year,Have twelve times melted into scarlet Springs,
Then shall the ship that leaves the wanderer there
Plume for the isle again her hollow wings,
And back to busy life rich treasures bear,
The golden fruit of silent studyings;
And it may be, his ashes—for that Death
Hath leave to slay, where Life hath leave of breath.
XI
The Morning came! the fair, delicious light,Born between Sun and Moon; when mortal eye,
Waking with eagle-vision from the night
Glances the farthest up into the sky,
And there beyond the blue, and past the white,
Hath glimpse of Heaven and Heaven's company;
Flashes of thrones, and gleams of golden strings;
Red smiles, and purple robes, and silver wings.
XII
The morning came! and in the morning rayThey saw an island with a belt of foam,
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As though its fields and waving woods had come
Above the billows only with the day.
Then gazed he joyously upon his home,
And bade them anchor where the shining sand
Sloped from the quiet water to the land.
XIII
Like swan that saileth to his snowy loveSails the light shallop, silently and slow;
The broad sheet gliding in the blue above,
And gliding shadowed in the blue below;
Then, where the beach bends inward to a cove
Under the shadow of the rocks they go;
And furl the sail and rest the dripping oar,
And leave the boat, and leap upon the shore.
XIV
There built they him a pleasant place of rest,On the green forehead of a grassy hill,
Hid underneath the leaves like hidden nest—
Cool in the noontide, in the tempest still;
And thither brought they of their store, the best,
With silent talk drear silences to fill,
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They left him to live out the lonely years.
XV
He saw their boat along the billows glide,And slowly lessen to a very speck;
He marked them climb the good ship's sable side,
And gaze upon him from the peopled deck;
He knew them gone:—what though he inly sighed,
The knowledge was a joy, that from his neck
The chain that bound him to his kind was gone:
He stood for good or ill—free and alone.
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