Between the tangle of the palms,
There gleaming, like a star-strewn plain,
All smiling, lies the sea of calms,
And calls to us to fare amain;
And calls us, as with smile and gem,
She called that bold, upstanding brood,
Whose bones, when she had done with them,
Upon her shores she strewed.
Between the tangle of the palms,
By day the gleam is on the swell,
And drifting zephyrs, bearing balms,
Her tales of joy and riches tell,
And when the winds of night are free
Long, glimmering ripples wander by
As if the stars where in the sea,
Instead of in the sky.
And they went forth in ships of war
Girt up in all foolhardiness,
To take their toll from out her store,
Beguiled and snared by her caress;
And we go forth in cargo ships
To wrest her treasures bloodlessly,
And buy the nectar from her lips,
Our fairy goddess, she!
Where once their galleons blundered by
Our cargo ships are on their way,
And where their galleons rotting lie,
Our cargo ships are wrecked today.
For ever, 'till the world is done,
And all good merchantmen go down,
And dies the wind, as pales the sun,
Her smile will mask her frown.
[Illustration]