Poems (Hooper)/Julin

by Lucy Hamilton Hooper

JULIN.

Es rauscht der Wind, es rinnt die Welle.

Soft sighs the breeze, soft flows the wave,
 Swift flies the vessel on her way,
To yonder ledge of chalky rock.
 "There," says the captain, "Julin lay."

Julin, the city by the sea,
 Swept by the silent flood away.
How comes the old tradition back
 To my foreboding heart to-day!

I think how in my childhood days,
 My soul rejoiced in fabled lore;
My sister many a wondrous tale
 Told me at eve beside the door.

Clearly my mind recalls the scene:
 We sat upon a bench of stone;
In the next garden lindens bloomed;
 The moon in heaven brightly shone.

The slender Gothic gables rose
 Solemnly where the shadows fell,
And now and then rang out o'erhead
 The chimes of sweet St. Mary's bell.

Then in we went to evening prayers;
 Then slumber soothed my childish brain,
And I the buried cities built
 In splendor in my dreams again.

O boyish dreams, so bright, so pure,
 O youthful joys, where did ye flee?
Soft sighs the breeze, soft flows the wave:
 Julin—Vineta—where are ye?
Geibel.