The Enviable Isles
_From ‘Rammon.’_
Through storms you reach them and from
storms are free.
Afar descried, the foremost drear in hue,
But, nearer, green; and, on the marge, the sea
Makes thunder low and mist of rainbowed
dew.
But, inland, where the sleep that folds the hills
A dreamier sleep, the trance of God, instills—
On uplands hazed, in wandering airs
aswoon,
Slow-swaying palms salute love’s cypress tree
Adown in vale where pebbly runlets croon
A song to lull all sorrow and all glee.
Sweet-fern and moss in many a glade are here.
Where, strewn in flocks, what cheek-flushed
myriads lie
Dimpling in dream—unconscious slumberers
mere,
While billows endless round the beaches die.
Other works by Herman Melville...
