I too, like you, in youth’s romantic bowers
Dreamt not of wasps in fruit, nor thorns in flowers;
And when on banks of sand the sunbeams shone,
I deemed each sparkling flint a precious stone.
Ah! noble lady, learn, that isle so fair,
The fields all roses, and all balm the air,
That isle is one, where every leaf’s a spell,
Where no good thing e’er dwelt, nor e’er shall dwell.
No fisher, forced from home by adverse breeze,
Would slake his thirst from yon infernal trees: