WHERE are the Islands of the Blest? They stud the AEgean Sea; And where the deep Elysian rest? It haunts the vale where Peneus strong Pours his incessant stream along, While craggy ridge and mountain bare Cut keenly through the liquid air, And in their own pure tints array'd, Scorn earth's green robes which change and fade And stand in beauty undecay'd, Guards of the bold and free. For what is Afric, but the home Of burning Phlegethon? What the low beach and silent gloom, And chilling mists of that dull river, Along whose bank the thin ghosts shiver, -- The thin wan ghosts that once were men, -- But Tauris, isle of moor and fen, Or dimly traced by seamen's ken, The pale-cliff'd Albion. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...GLADYS AND HER ISLAND; AN IMPERFECT TALE WITH DOUBTFUL MORAL by JEAN INGELOW MY PICTURE LEFT IN SCOTLAND by BEN JONSON SING-SONG; A NURSERY RHYME BOOK: 20 by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI THE SAD MOTHER by KATHARINE TYNAN THERE WAS A CHILD WENT FORTH by WALT WHITMAN THE FLIGHT OF TIME by J. K. BLAKE IN VINCULIS; SONNETS WRITTEN IN AN IRISH PRISON: THE TWO VOICES by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT |