Home, round into the English wave?—
He tarries where the Rock of Spain
Mediterranean waters lave;
He enters not the Atlantic main.
Oh, could he once have reached this air
Freshened by plunging tides, by showers!
Have felt this breath he loved, of fair
Cool Northern fields, and grass, and flowers!
He longed for it—pressed on. In vain!
At the Straits failed that spirit brave.
The South was parent of his pain,
The South is mistress of his grave.
A SOUTHERN NIGHT.
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,
Like ghosts, the 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
To where the light-house beacons bright
Far in the bay.
Ah! such a night, so soft, so lone,
So moonlit, saw me once of yore[21]
Wander unquiet, and my own
Vexed heart deplore.
But now that trouble is forgot:
Thy memory, thy pain, to-night,
My brother! and thine early lot,[22]
Possess me quite.