ISLE OF WIGHT

Isle of beauty, thou art singing

To my sense a sweet refrain;

To my busy mem'ry bringing

Scenes that I would see again.

Chief, the charm of thy reflecting,

Is the moral that it brings;

Nature, with the mind connecting,

Gives the artist's fancy wings.

Soul, sublime‘ mid human débris,

Paints the limner's work, I ween,

Art and Science, all unweary,

Lighting up this mortal dream.

Work ill-done within the misty

Mine of human thoughts, we see

Soon abandoned when the Master

Crowns life's Cliff for such as we.

Students wise, he maketh now thus

Those who fish in waters deep,

When the buried Master hails us

From the shores afar, complete.

Art hath bathed this isthmus-lordling

In a beauty strong and meek

As the rock, whose upward tending

Points the plane of power to seek.

Isle of beauty, thou art teaching

Lessons long and grand, tonight,

To my heart that would be bleaching

To thy whiteness, Cliff of Wight.