Eight Harvard Poets/The Island of Death

THE ISLAND OF DEATH

THERE is an island in a silent sea
That rises — four, rough, rugged walls — on high
Above the ocean in calm majesty.
      A mountain of despair against the sky!
      About its summit soaring seagulls fly,
Or rest them in its lofty cypress trees,
      And greet the black barge bearing those who die
Upon our earth to everlasting ease
And pleasant lives that know not man's eternities.

White halls and palaces their dwellings stand;
      These shadowy souls are all unknown to graves
And live, faint phantoms in a fairy land
      Of dreams and idleness. They hear the waves
      Sing, and the winds come calling from the caves
Of night beyond the ocean, and the cry
      Of screaming gulls; stare at each ship that braves
This wilderness of waters, and glides by
In awe-struck silence, ever fearing to draw nigh.

The sun, descending, sows the sea with gold,
      And showers splendour through the fading skies,

Whilst from the murky waters they behold
      The moon, a shape of silver, slow arise.
      And every evening, as the daylight dies,
There comes that bark of death, whose white sail seems
      An angel in the dark. A while it lies
Below them in the harbour, then there gleams
A new shape on the stairs up to that land of dreams.