 | The Ballad of Babie Bell And Other Poems |  |
84
PASSING ST. HELENA.
And this is St. Helena? This the spotHaunted forever by an Emperor!
Methinks 'twere meet that such a royal ghost
Should pace these gloomy battlements by night!
—The ship veered off, and we passed out to sea:
And in the first fair moonrise of the month,
I watched the island, till it seemed a speck
No bigger than Astarte. Year by year,
The picture came and went upon my brain,
Like frost-work on the windows: in my dreams
I saw those jagged turrets of dull rock
Uplifted in the moonlight: saw the gulls
Darting in sudden circles; heard the low
And everlasting anthem of the sea!
And from the nether world a voice would come,
Here did they bring the Corsican, and here
Died the chained eagle by these dismal cliffs!
| The Ballad of Babie Bell And Other Poems | |