Classic Poem

... I sing the animated smiles
Of fairy nature in these sun-born isles ...
These leafy isles upon the ocean thrown
Like studs of emerald o'er a silver zone ...
Bright rose the morning, every wave was still,
When the first perfume of a cedar hill
Sweetly awaked us, and, with smiling charms,
The fairy harbour wooed us to its arms.

Gently we stole, before the whispering wind,
Through plantain shades that round, like awnings, twined
And kissed on either side the wanton sails,
Breathing our welcome to these vernal vales;
While, far reflected o'er the wave serene,
Each wooded island shed so soft a green
That the enamoured keel, with whispering play,
Through liquid herbage seemed to steal its way.

Never did weary bark more gladly glide,
Or rest its anchor in a lovelier tide!

*****

Could you but view the scenery fair
That now beneath my window lies,
You'd think that nature lavished there
Her purest wave, her softest skies,
To make a heaven for love to sigh in,
For bards to live and saints to die in,
Close to my wooded bank below,
In glassy calm the waters sleep,
And to the sunbeam proudly show
The coral rocks they love to steep.

The fainting breeze of morning fails;
The drowsy boat moves slowly past,
And I can almost touch its sails
As loose they flap around the mast.
The noontide sun a splendour pours
That lights up all these leafy shores;
While his own heaven, its clouds and beams,
So pictured in the waters lie,
That each small bark, in passing, seems
To float along a burning sky.