Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.

By LucyRobinson

1512 A Ballade of Islands

I WOULD I had been island-born.

I dearly love things insular:

The coral bed, the quaint bazaar,

The palm and breadfruit never shorn,

The smoking cone that cannot char

The azure of a tropic morn,

The dancing girl in soft cymar,—

All these such lures, such wonders are—

Oh, why was I not island-born?

In island crossed of Capricorn—

In Otaheite, wild Happar—

Lurk all the powers that make or mar.

The ogress, wrinkled like a Norn,

The parrot-fish, the nenuphar,

The tides that leave in quiet scorn

The moon out of their calendar,

Miranda’s cave, Nausicaa’s car,—

All these are for the island-born.

’T was on a far-off isle forlorn

That Haidee wore her golden bar,

Virginia seemed a drifted spar,

Rarahu’s loving heart was torn,

Sweet Allan Bane, in peace and war,

Awoke St. Modan’s harp outworn,

And Graziella her guitar;

She bore the brimming water-jar

Not grieving to be island-born.

Prince, on three islands, sundered far,

Thine were life’s flower, its husk, its thorn.

Ripe grew thy wrath on Elba’s scar,

In St. Helena sank thy star.

Napoleon, thou wast island-born!