A HEAP of low, dark, rocky coast, Where the blue-black sea sleeps smooth and even: And the sun, just over the reefs at most, In the amber part of a pale blue heaven: A village asleep below the pines, Hid up the gray shore from the low slow sun: And a maiden that lingers among the vines, With her feet in the dews, and her locks undone: The half-moon melting out of the sky; And, just to be seen still, a star here, a star there, Faint, high up in the heart of the heaven; so high And so faint, you can scarcely be sure that they are there. And one of that small, black, raking craft; Two swivel guns on a round deck handy; And a great sloop sail with the wind abaft; And four brown thieves round a cask of brandy. That's my life, as I left it last. And what it may be henceforth I know not. But all that I keep of the merry Past Are trifles like these, which I care to show not: -- A leathern flask, and a necklace of pearl; These rusty pistols, this tattered chart, Friend, And the soft dark half of a raven curl; And, at evening, the thought of a true, true heart, Friend. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SWEET STAY-AT-HOME by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES SUMMER BY THE LAKESIDE by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER ONCE & EVER by JOSEPH BEAUMONT EPITAPH ON NICOL OF THE HIGH SCHOOL, EDINBURGH by ROBERT BURNS A BOOK OF AIRS: SONG 36 by THOMAS CAMPION TO EARL STANHOPE by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE SONG: WHEN GREEN LEAVES COME AGAIN by DINAH MARIA MULOCK CRAIK |