THE FIRST AND LAST LAND

Thrice-blest, alone with Nature!— here, where gray

Belerium fronts the spray

Smiting the bastion'd crags through centuries flown,

While,‘ neath the hissing surge,

Ocean sends up a deep, deep undertone,

As though his heavy chariot-wheels went round:

Nor is there other sound

Save from the abyss of air, a plaintive note,

The seabirds’ calling cry,

As‘ gainst the wind with well-poised weight they float,

Or on some white-fringed reef set up their post,

And sentinel the coast:—

Whilst, round each jutting cape, in pillar'd file,

The lichen-bearded rocks

Like hoary giants guard the sacred Isle.

— Happy, alone with Nature thus!— Yet here

Dim, primal man is near;—

The hawk-eyed eager traders, who of yore

Through long Biscayan waves

Star-steer'd adventurous from the Iberic shore

Or the Sidonian, with their fragrant freight

Oil-olive, fig, and date;

Jars of dark sunburnt wine, flax-woven robes,

Or Tyrian azure glass

Wavy with gold, and agate-banded globes:—

Changing for amber-knobs their Eastern ware

Or tin-sand silvery fair,

To temper brazen swords, or rim the shield

Of heroes, arm'd for fight:—

While the rough miners, wondering, gladly yield

The treasured ore; nor Alexander's name

Know, nor fair Helen's shame;

Or in his tent how Peleus’ wrathful son

Looks toward the sea, nor heeds

The towers of still-unconquer'd Ilion.