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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. AT KEY'S GRAVE. I stood one summer, friend, beside The foam waves of a distant sea That muttered all the summer through A low sweet threnody. A mournful song was ever on The lips that it were death to kiss, A song for those who died as died The brave at ancient Salamis. A thousand graves lay in the trough Of that great ocean of the East, A thousand souls fled through its foam Towards the starlit land of peace. And for each ship-wrecked soul that slept Beneath the dark inconstant waves The wind gave songs in memory Of men true-hearted, pure and brave. But I have stood, sweet-singer, by Thy lonely, unmarked grave to-day, And all the songs thy memory got Came from the branches in their sway. Ah, peace! ah, love! ah, friendship true! No wreath rests here wove by your hands To mark the Poet's silent tomb. As tombs are marked in other lands. But in
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