No alien land in all the world has any
deep, strong charm for me but that one.
No other land could so longingly and beseechingly
haunt me sleeping and waking,
through half a lifetime,
as that one has done.
Other things leave me
But it abides,
Other things change
but it remains the same.
For me its balmy airs are always blowing,
its summer seas flashing in the sun,
the pulsing of its surf beat is in my ears.
I can see its garlanded craigs,
its leaping cascades
its plumy palms drowsing by the shore
its remote summits floating like islands
above the cloudrack
I can feel the spirit of its woodland solitude,
I can hear the splash of its brooks
In my nostrils still lives the breath of flowers
that perished twenty years ago.
