A Coral Island

Girded by wastes of sounding foam, Slumbers unseen the fruitful isle; Day in, day out, the cloudless dome Looks down with its unending smile, And night by night the voiceful tide Flashes one glory far and wide. Never by plash of cleaving oar The dreary long lagoons are stirred; The rollers on the sun-bleached shore Beat out their mighty songs unheard. The rounding fruit in plenty here Ripens untended, year by year. High set upon the western hill, Twin lofty palm-trees watchful stand, That keep unending vigil still O'er silent cliff and untrod sand. Nightly they show, when daylight dies, Dark spires against the saffron skies. Where dense the hanging tendrils grow The remnants of a galleon lie (The only monuments to show How humankind has e'er come nigh); Some vessel seeking gems and gold In wild adventurous days of old. The waters of the dark lagoon Lap softly round her mouldering keel, And creepers hang in wild festoon From broken mast and lichened wheel, And in the gilded figure-head Bright-breasted songsters make their bed. Deep in the darkness of the hold Where beams and nails have fallen away, Flash gleams of light from hard-won gold, And one great ruby's crimson ray, That seems as if some tropic bloom Had budded in the faint-lit gloom. The white bones lie about the deck Of those who trod it long ago, And little, lying there, they reek Of that forgotten hoard below; Their lifelong quest of wonders past; Their joys, their sorrows ceased at last.