The sea winds blow from western isles,
From isles where fancy dwells and peace.
Where summer sunshine softly smiles
And perfumes of the far off east
Float over waves white-capped with foam
That glisten in the pale sweet light
Shed from the far eternal dome
Where fair star faces paint the night.
Life must have rest sometime, somewhere,
On land or wave its peace shall be,
And I have found my life's fond share
In yon fair isle of Hebride;
In yon fair isle where all day long
The sunlight shadows drift and float
And all the world seems bathed in song
Borne trembling from the skylark's throat.
O! isle of peace, the waves that kiss
Thy beaches all the centuries through,
Flow from mysterious founts of bliss
From founts o'er run with sunny dew,
And o'er thy tree-tops lazily
The perfumed breezes come and go
With odors from that far countree
Where eglantine and jessamine grow.
Fair isle of summer, isle of love,
Where souls forget their bitter strife
And mingled sadnesses that move
In tempests o'er the sea of life;
I kiss thy fair shore with my knee,
And lift a thankful heart to God,
For perfect joy comes unto me
Where thy trees' blossomed branches nod.
Thy long sea waves float in beyond
The dim blue lines of sunlit sky,
Where films of cloudy lacework frond
The billows tumbling mountain high;
And shoreward in the still sweet eve
The low songs of the mermaids drift,
As in some coral grot they weave
Their seaweed robes, and sometimes lift
Their long, strong, tangled lengths of hair
Above the bosom of the wave,
While 'mid its golden meshes fair
The distant sunbeams stoop to lave.
Sweet isle of fancy, far beyond
The dark dim vales of human woe,
My bark of love sails o'er the fond
Blue waves that ever shoreward flow.
My bark sails on the unknown sea
Led by a large, pale star alone,
That star wherein her face may be,
Who to that better land hath gone.
O, never turn, brave white-sailed ship,
Again towards that barren shore
But bear me on the waves that dip
And kiss yon isle forevermore.
Sweet day of rest when toil is past,
When hearts can lay their burdens by
And feel the peace God's angels cast
In isleward flights from his fair sky!
Sweet isle of love where fancy dwells,
And nature knows no pang of care,
I hear the music of its bells
Far floating on the evening air.
I hear the lonely shepherd's song
Flow down the green and mossy vale,
And westward all the calm night long
The restless sea gulls sail.
I sometimes turn towards the stars
With sudden shock of glad surprise,
And half believe these island bars
Are but the gates to Paradise.