Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Oceanica: Vol. XXXI. 1876–79.
Madeira
By Michael Drayton (1563–1631)T
Medera’s wealthy Isles the first discoveréd,
Who having stolen a maid, to whom he was affied,
Yet her rich parents still her marriage rites denied,
Put with her forth to sea, where, many a danger past,
Upon an isle of those at length by tempest cast;
And putting in, to give his tender love some ease,
Which very ill had brooked the rough and boisterous seas;
And lingering for her health within the quiet bay,
The mariners most false fled with the ship away,
When as it was not long but she gave up her breath;
When he whose tears in vain bewailed her timeless death,
That their deservéd rites her funeral could not have,
A homely altar built upon her honored grave.
When with his folk but few, not passing two or three,
There making them a boat, but rudely of one tree,
Put forth again to sea, where after many a flaw,
Such as before themselves scarce mortal ever saw,
Nor miserable men could possibly sustain,
Now swallowed with the waves, and then spewed up again,
At length were on the coast of sunburnt Affrick thrown,
T’ amaze that further world, and to amuse our own.