Too long I’ve lingered inland fruitlessly,
Strolling with moonlit loves through narrow vales,
Where to rapt hearts rave love-tranced nightingales!
I so said, thrilling to the far off sea,
Whose deep voiced tides and storms were calling me:
Leave dalliance, and breast my wholesome gales,
The world is known not in thy timid dales;
My winds ’twixt nations waft my lovers free.
But when I came unto the thundrous shore,
Long enervating habit balked intent;
My ventured wealth returned less than before,
I dove for pearls, found only empty shells:
Yet learned I then what love and peace have meant,
Though not why famed ambitions strike their knells.