’Tis an isle which the ocean
Has kept like a bride,
For the moonlit devotion
Of each gentler tide;
No eyes hath ere wander'd,
No step been addrest,
Where nature has squander'd
Her fairest and best.
That vessel of slaughter, that lord of the war.
He saw his chiefs stooping,
But not unto him;
The stately form drooping,
The flashing eye dim.
The wind from the nor'erd
Swept past, fierce and free;
It hurried them forward,
They knew not the sea;
The plague was among them—they sicken'd and died.
Left last, and left lonely,
Earl Harold remain'd;
One captive—one only
Life's burden sustain'd;
She watch'd o'er his sleeping,
Low, sweetly she spoke,
He saw not her weeping,
She smiled when he woke;
He had one gentler feeling, and that was her own.
Fierce the wild winds were blowing
That drove them all night,
Now the hush'd waves are flowing
In music and light:
The storm is forsaking
Its strife with the main,
And the blue sky is breaking
Thro' clouds and thro' rain:
Where the palms and the spice-groves rise lovely and lone.
Her bright hair is flying
Escaped from its fold,
The night-dews are drying
Away from its gold;
The op'ning flowers quiver
Beneath the soft air;
She turns with a shiver
From what is so fair.
For her, in the wide world, what is there to see!
He tries—vain the trying—
To lift up his sword,
As if still defying
The Death, now his lord.
